Andy Higginbottom reviews Adam Hanieh’s crucial new book, Crude Capitalism.

The renewed hunger strike of fifteen political prisoners of the Mapuche resistance movement in Chile has reached a highly critical stage. Their loved ones are calling for a week of action in the lead up to their appeal hearing on February 9.

The COP28 summit taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 30 November to 12 December is a colossal illusion, a mirage in the desert.

The mining super-majors are keen to walk away from their legacy responsibilities, which in the case of South Africa date back to colonial times under British rule, continuing under apartheid, and in the last generation since 1994.

Nine political prisoners of the Mapuche people in southern Chile have been on hunger strike since November 27. Now, their protest has reached a dangerous and crucial moment.

As a rainbow of social movements in Peru prepare for a general strike starting on 4 January the country is polarised between party politicians’ intrigues and action of the masses on the streets. 

There has been a social explosion of the Colombian people against poverty and repression. President Duque’s ‘tax reform’ package was the last straw that broke their patience.

Is oil a stranded asset? Or is the system defunct? This thought-provoking talk was given by Andy Higginbottom, Associate Professor in the Politics Department of Kingston University in Britain. In this talk he looks at Marx’s theory of rent as surplus profit and its parallels within the oil markets.

There is no global social unity in the face of climate disaster. Yet we need a genuinely internationalist rebellion against the corporations at the extractive imperialist heart of British capitalism. Their extinction as a species is required to save the planet.