Video footage from late December shows elderly patients infected with COVID-19 on stretchers receiving oxygen stored in large blue bottles. They are being treated on the road outside the emergency department of Zhongshan Hospital, one of the largest in Shanghai.
Video footage shows a crowd of students at Tsinghua University in Beijing holding up blank pieces of paper and chanting, “Democracy, rule of law, freedom of expression!” Through a loudspeaker, a young woman can be heard in the background shouting: “If because we are afraid of being arrested, we don’t speak, I believe our people will be disappointed in us. As a Tsinghua student, I will regret this my entire life!”
A surge in both COVID-19 cases and protests inside China presents a dilemma for the ruling Communist Party.
“Either the Russian revolution will raise the whirlwind of struggle in the West, or the capitalists of all countries will crush our revolution.” It was 25 October 1917, and Trotsky was addressing the delegates of the Second All Russia Congress of Soviets in Petrograd (formerly Saint Petersburg). Earlier that day, he had helped organise and lead the first successful workers’ insurrection.
World military spending has passed US$2 trillion for the first time, according to new data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Last year was the seventh consecutive year that world military spending increased; total expenditure has almost doubled this century.
After several months of campaigning, students have forced the withdrawal of the management-controlled La Trobe Student Association (LTSA) from La Trobe University’s Bundoora campus. This is an important victory for student democracy and a blow to the university’s controversial restructuring plans.