Cuba prepares to begin post-pandemic recovery; USA steps ups sanctions

Much was made in western media of the success of New Zealand, as a capitalist country, in tackling COVID-19 when they announced earlier this week that they would be lifting a number of internal restrictions. By contrast almost no attention has been given to the stunning success of socialist countries during this pandemic, in particular Cuba and Vietnam, in mainstream media.
Cuba’s Council of Ministers announced yesterday (11 June 2020) a series of measures for the first stage of recovery from the COVID-19 epidemic, planned as a gradual process with three phases.
Communists: Britain must confront its racist and imperialist past – and present

Following the toppling of a statue of Edward Coulston, a notorious slave trader, in Bristol on Sunday (7 June 2020) by protesters involved in Black Lives Matter demonstrations, there has been a general backlash in the mainstream and right wing media. Coulston was responsible for forcibly transporting at least 80,000 slaves to the Americas, with tens of thousands dying in the process.
The Communist Party’s Anti Racist Commission and the Young Communist League released the following statement yesterday (10 June 2020) in support of the action.
‘A nation that occupies other nations cannot be free’: Young Communist League of Israel

The Communist Youth of Turkey interviewed with the Young Communist League of Israel via SoLInternational on the anniversary of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967.
The Communist Youth League of Israel say, ‘We – Jews and Arabs will continue on our path of struggle for socialism and just peace. No government and no state can prevent an entire people and nation from existing.’
Restaurant Group plc set to sack 3,000 at Frankie and Benny’s

The London Stock Exchange listed owners of the Frankie and Benny’s chain have confirmed that they will be shutting 125 outlets across Britain in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Turkey & USA agree secret carve up of Libya

Authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared today (9 June 2020) that he has reached an unspecified agreement with Donald Trump for imperialist control of Libya during telephone talks.
The Scottish Government is complicit in the Coronavirus tragedy

Michael Quinn points out that, contrary to much mainstream media coverage, Sturgeon’s SNP government has followed the lead of Johnson’s Tories in responding to the pandemic – and have failed just as miserably.
Poetry Corner: Our March by Vladimir Mayakovsky

Our March by Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1917.
Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and came to be one of the most celebrated communist poets in the Soviet Union and internationally. He was also a talented playwright, artist and actor who used art as a medium to convey the politics and ideals of the new socialist state.
USA attacks global health as Trump withdraws funding for WHO

U.S. President Donald Trump broke off relations with the World Health Organisation at the end of last month, questioning the institution’s management of the epidemiological crisis caused by COVID-19.
Joint statement of Communist Parties: Occupation is Terror; Annexation is Apartheid

On the initiative of the Palestinian People’s Party and the Communist Party of Israel, communist and workers’ parties from across the world signed the following joint statement.
CP Executive Committee: Communists attack class-based racism & call for nationalisation to save jobs

‘The vicious killing of George Floyd has highlighted the racism that still pervades developed capitalist societies and their state institutions’, Mollie Brown declared at the Communist Party of Britain’s Executive Committee meeting this weekend. She pointed to recent examples of the deaths and serious injuries of black detainees in police custody in Britain, the US and France which, she suggested, were also related to the use of dangerous restraint techniques that were used disproportionately against black and working-class people.