Born on this day in 1931, the heroic revolutionary faces a dangerous new wave of White House aggression. We must treat his birthday as a rallying cry to resist the illegal siege of Cuba, writes ROGER McKENZIE
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How poverty itself shaped A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens was facing a return to the destitution that had blighted his childhood, and it was this which drove him to write the remarkable best-seller which changed the politics of Christmas forever, writes MAT COWARD
Actors rehearsing for a performance of Another Christmas Carol at the Charles Dickens Museum in London in 2016
RAMZY BAROUD decries the rats of Gaza, the rodent and human type. Both abound as profiteering from tragedy reaches obscene levels
When gas company bosses gorged on assets, the GMB union fought back with the help of a 20-stone saddleback sow. MAT COWARD tells the story
JOHN REES looks at why the June 20 international anti-war conference is such a vital initiative
ROGER McKENZIE highlights how health workers in DRC are struggling to contain a deadly Ebola outbreak in a region already suffering conflict, aid cuts and a legacy of imperialist degradation
Associate Professor BUI QUANG TUAN explains how modernisation and growth are helping to unlock new foreign investment in the Vietnamese economy
MILLIONS of people this month will be watching, reading or listening to some version of An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child. Many will return to the original text; others may prefer the Muppets’ interpretation.
In 1843, Charles Dickens (1812-70) had two worries on his mind; one personal, and the other … well, the other personal as well, in a way.
His immediate problem was that his career appeared to be on its deathbed. He’d been a successful writer since his mid-twenties and had become, in a short time, a superstar throughout the English-speaking world. This was the first time he’d experienced professional failure.
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Long before modern labour movements, England’s farmworkers fought back against their oppression – and for some, like Elizabeth Studham, the price was exile to Australia. MAT COWARD tells the story
MAT COWARD tells the story of the eccentric founder of a short-lived but striking experiment in ‘vital democracy,’ who became best known for giving away his estate to the nation
‘Honest’ Tom Wharton’s 1682 drunken rampage through St Mary’s church haunted his political career, but his satirical song Lillibullero helped topple Catholic James II during the Glorious Revolution, writes MAT COWARD
While an as-yet-unnamed new left party struggles to be born, MAT COWARD looks at some of the wild and wonderful names of workers’ organisations past that have been lost to time