A major teachers' strike has broken out
in Nigeria over the question of a Teachers' Salary Scale. What is significant
is that 88% of the population is backing the strike. This fact alone reveals
the real feelings of the Nigerian working class and poor masses. It reveals the
potential for a much wider movement involving the whole of the working class.

To look at the Pakistan Army solely as the instrument of the
ruling class would mean ignoring the real contradictions that have developed
within it. On the one hand an important wing of the top military brass are now
involved directly in the economy, both the legal and the black economy ,
including drug running. There is another contradiction, which is that between
the top brass and the lower ranks who are more in touch with the mood of the
masses.

What is the most effective way of combating racism? Fred Weston, of the
marxist.com editorial board, spoke at the Marxist Day School held
recently in London on the effects of positive discrimination and the
lessons for the labour movement, touching on the origins of racism,
the Black question in the USA, South Africa and the struggle against
apartheid and Brazil where today the Black Socialist movement is
opposing racial legislation.

Socialist Vice Presidential Candidate Stewart A. Alexander attacked the economic programs of Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama and Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain; Alexander dismissed the economic proposals of both candidates as "campaign baiting to win votes." Alexander says the U.S. economy needs much more than what either candidate has presented, "the U.S. economy needs a total makeover, and a little makeup will not work."

The U.S.
is in the worst housing slump since the Great Depression as home prices fell by
a record 15.3 percent from a year ago in the first few months of the year.
Mortgage defaults and home repossessions have skyrocketed as working people are
unable to make ends meet.