On 3 February 1962, US president Kennedy signed proclamation 3447, decreeing an embargo on all trade with Cuba, which was to enter into effect on 7 February. This marked the official beginning of a 60-year blockade (though the imperialist assault had started earlier), which has progressively been strengthened and tightened.

The so-called Freedom Convoy has dominated headlines for the past few weeks and has been blockading the downtown core around Parliament Hill in Ottawa for a week. While the numbers in the blockade have thinned, there are no signs that they intend to leave anytime soon and many have vowed to stay until their demands for the rescinding of all pandemic health measures are met.

We live in tumultuous times. In the midst of a pandemic, workers are putting their health and lives at risk for peanuts while the bosses rake in record profits. For almost two years, employees have been expected to drone on as loyal worker bees with zero regard for their health. Meanwhile, homelessness and rent, hunger and food prices, natural disasters, and fuel prices continue to rise, and meager wage rises are gobbled up by inflation. Such conditions are volatile and unsustainable.

In the current crisis over Ukraine, Canada has not played its usual role as the mild-mannered younger brother of U.S. imperialism. As a recent op-ed in the Toronto Starpointed out, Canada has been “playing the cowboy” and being “unusually hawkish”. Far from unusual, this is entirely consistent with Canada’s typical approach to Ukraine. Posing as a benevolent protector to cover its own imperialist maneuvers, Canada’s denunciations of “Russian aggression” ring with hypocrisy.

Thirty years have passed since the publication of The End of History and the Last Man. Gloating in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama made an astonishing claim. Humanity had reached “the end of history as such: that is, the end-point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

The first weeks of the new year have already had their fair share of bleak news. As if the Omicron surge was not enough, working Canadian families can now look forward to a surging grocery bill. Food prices are set to increase between six and eight per cent this year, according to a new report from Dalhousie University.

The rerun of the election for the governor of the State of Barinas – home state of the late Hugo Chávez – produced an apparently surprising result: the defeat of the PSUV and the victory of the reactionary opposition candidate Sergio Garrido, of the Democratic Union Table (MUD) – the pro-imperialist, coup-plotting opposition that represents the old oligarchy.

The recent trial and sentencing of elite socialite and sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has opened the curtain on the disgusting den of sin that the capitalist class inhabit – with all eyes now on Prince Andrew and the crisis-ridden monarchy.

The candidate of Apruebro Dignidad, Gabriel Boric has won the presidential election with 56% of the votes. In absolute terms, this is a record majority, with some 4.6 million votes cast for Boric, putting him almost 1 million votes ahead of the pro-Pinochet candidate, Juan Antonio Kast, who obtained 44%.

Journalist and founder of the whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks Julian Assange can now be extradited to the US to face charges of espionage, ruled Her Majesty's High Court on 10 December. This ruling was in favour of an appeal by the US government to overturn the previous decision by the Westminster Magistrates' Court from January, which denied the extradition on the grounds that the harsh and restrictive prison conditions that Assange may face could worsen his mental wellbeing, creating a real risk of suicide.

Over the past several days, a massive tornado outbreak in the US has led to a series of deaths in workplaces, due to the bosses’ refusal to take even minimum steps to keep employees safe. Tragedies such as these amount to corporate murder. They expose the callousness inherent to capitalism, which sacrifices workers’ lives on the altar of profit on a daily basis.

There is a growing demand for revolutionary ideas as more and more Canadians realize that capitalism has failed. A recent study showed that 35 per cent of the population support moving away from this system, and in the current context it is not hard to see why. It is with this in mind that Fightback magazine recently went fortnightly, meaning we doubled our rate of publication to provide a Marxist analysis on current events every two weeks!

A strike has been raging for a fortnight in Guadeloupe, triggered by the imposition of compulsory vaccinations. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back following a long period of attacks. Similar explosions are taking place throughout French imperialism’s overseas territories.

Québec solidaire recently held its national congress. The leadership are on clear a rightward trajectory, seeking to water down the party’s anti-capitalist and socialist traditions in order to “prepare to govern". By this, they mean making the party acceptable to the establishment, and ready to govern within the limits of capitalism.

Xiomara Castro, candidate of the Libre party (Freedom and Refoundation Party), the main force in the opposition coalition, has won the elections in Honduras. The regime established by the 2009 coup has been overthrown. With 40 percent of the votes tallied, Xiomara is ahead with 53.61 percent against 33.87 percent for Nasry Afura (nickname ‘Papi a la orden’ – ‘Daddy of law and order’) of the National Party, the candidate representing the continuity of the coup.