The war of so-called ‘liberation’ in Syria, this ‘struggle for democracy’, is an imperialist war pure and simple. All the regional and global powers are involved in it, with the USA, Russia, China, France and Britain in the front line. The involvement and responsibility of these gangsters is not restricted to their gesticulations in the UN or elsewhere, but through the arms and cash they are supplying to both camps

The brazen nature of the crimes and lies of the Syrian government is not the mark of a regime resting on strong foundations. Rather it reflects the desperation of a regime whose days are numbered. What began as an unarmed popular protest against the Assad regime has very quickly turned into a proxy war between regional and global imperialist powers.

The recent coup in Mali has only accelerated the chaos of a state that has been corrupt and degenerating for a very long time. Moreover, the coup has happened in the context of struggles for influence and in a zone which is the theatre of trafficking of all types, notably arms and drugs, where criminal groups (Islamic mafias and others) fall out over the price of hostages and the plundering of migrants. But above all, Mali is the weak link of a region in growing decomposition brought about by imperialist tensions which are unfolding in the greater region of the Sahel.

President Obama has announced US sanctions against those countries that continue to buy Iranian oil. This is not really a new move so much as the next move in applying pressure. Iran’s foreign policy, including its efforts to obtain a nuclear arsenal, is shaped by its claim to be a regional power in the Middle East. This brings it into opposition to Israel, as the undoubted leading power in the region, and its US backer. All talk about the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and international law only serve as diplomatic weapons when they are not simply propaganda to obscure the reality of the sordid imperialist interests at stake.

If there were suspicions over the ‘al-Qaida’ bomb in Damascus there was little doubt about who was responsible for the bomb that killed an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran on 11 January. While the Iranian state inevitably blamed the CIA, experienced observers and those with sources in the Israeli state identified Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, as being behind the attack. It is the fourth murder of an Iranian nuclear scientist in the last two years.

This article from the printed edition of World Revolution has already been published online under the title 

The shelling of the Yeonpyeong islands on November 23 by North Korea, killing two soldiers and two civilians, has brought tensions on the Korean Peninsula to a new height, with increasing worry throughout the world that the situation will develop into an explosive confrontation. Despite all the public displays of caution and concern for stabilizing the region, both the US and China have been playing a dangerous game of confrontations throughout East Asia over the past year, and each side is seeking to exploit the situation for the advancement of its own imperialist aims.

In February ‘Allied' forces in Afghanistan began a new offensive against the Taliban, trading under the name of ‘Operation Moshtarak'.