As in 2006, mass street protests have erupted in Mexico against electoral fraud by the ruling class. Accounts of massive vote-buying by the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) have prompted as many as half-a-million people, mainly youth, to come out to the streets of Mexico City. As a first step, the candidate of the left, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, should call for more protests, demonstrations, and occupations. But the lesson of 2006 is that such a movement can only succeed if it is the launching pad for an all-out general strike.

On September 13, a statement by Cuba’s trade union (CTC) published in Granma announced a whole series of sweeping changes in the country’s economy. These measures are the result of the serious economic crisis affecting Cuba, which has been hit hard by the recession in world capitalism. This underlines Cuba’s dependence on the world market and the impossibility of “building socialism in one country”.

The Hands Off Venezuela campaign in Canada has issued the following declaration relating to yesterday's coup attempt in Ecuador.  HOV calls on all workers, youth, and unions to educate themselves about these events, so we can raise solidarity for the next provocation.

As well, please check out the following article, "Ecuador--Mass insurrection defeats coup d'etat ," for more information on the attempted coup in Ecuador.

There is a man-made element to the catastrophe confronting Haitians. The country doesn’t just happen to be poor; it has been made poor and kept poor. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with the worst infrastructure and a people most vulnerable to disaster and disease, because of the machinations of imperialism. Although the earthquake could not be avoided, the scale of death and destruction clearly could have been avoided.

Although final official results are not yet available from last Sunday's presidential election in Bolivia, it appears that President Evo Morales and the MAS have been re-elected with two-thirds of the votes, an even larger landslide than his first election in 2005.  This vote is a reflection of the massive desire for change amongst the Bolivian masses.  We publish here the statement of our comrades of El Militante Bolivia.

In a previous article we pointed to the fact that the Tegucigalpa/San José Accord signed on October 30 was a farce. Events have now confirmed that we were right. To accept the agreement now would be a betrayal of the mass movement. What is required now is an active boycott, combined with mass mobilisation for the overthrow of the present illegitimate regime.

The Mexican authorities have launched a concerted attack on labour and student activists, in particular against members of CLEP-CEDEP. Please take up this solidarity and protest campaign urgently in your school, faculty or place of work and make your voice heard.

Four months after the coup against democratically elected president Mel Zelaya in Honduras, a combination of brutal repression and stalling tactics at the negotiating table have temporarily defused the resistance movement, but not decreased the people's opposition to the Micheletti regime. The level of consciousness has experienced a giant leap. It is necessary to group the most advanced activists of the movement into an organisation based on the ideas of Marxism.

Yesterday morning (Tuesday the 22nd) police and army forces violently attacked thousands of supporters of Honduran president Mel Zelaya and removed them violently from outside the Brazilian embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa. However, this brutal repression did not crush the will of the Honduran working people to resist against the coup. Following the lead given by the National Front of Resistance, there were mass demonstrations and barricades in all of the working class neighbourhoods of the capital and in the main cities throughout the country.

Yesterday morning it was confirmed that Mel Zelaya was in the capital Tegucigalpa. He made an appeal to the people to come out to protect him. The masses responded by the tens of thousands. The next few hours will be decisive. The balance of forces is on the side of the masses. They can deal the last blow to the coup regime and start the building of a new political regime based on the organisation of the masses.