The US and Poland’s leaders have escalated the militarisation of Europe and the tensions between the West and Russia.
In the Czech Republic, just as in most European countries, we have been watching television pictures of Georgia’s "brave" president Mikheil Saakashvili "defending his small country against imperial Russia".
Over the last three months, 60,000 more people in Britain have become unemployed. This massive rise takes the unemployment total to 1.67 million.
There is no doubt that capitalism is bad for the planet. Multinationals exploit natural resources in the interest of profit, pumping their waste into our rivers, oceans and atmosphere.
New Labour chancellor Alistair Darling explained last week that he was unable and unwilling to bring in a windfall tax on the fuel companies. His explanation was that these companies made a lot of their money outside Britain – and therefore paid taxes in other countries.
The Global economic crisis known as the "credit crunch" reached its first birthday last week – and it’s a long way from being over. The anniversary coincided with new figures showing home repossessions, unemployment and food prices all rising fast.
The current credit crunch was triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis in the US. But how did the global economy become so reliant on consumer debt in the first place?
The Great Depression of the 1930s dealt an incredible blow to US capitalism. Industrial production fell dramatically. By 1932, one quarter of the US workforce was unemployed.
The outbreak of war in the Caucasus over the past week has stunned the world. More fighting, more bombing, thousands dead and tens of thousands of refugees are the daily scenes on our television screens.
War has torn apart yet another region of the world in the last week, as Russia and Georgia clashed over South Ossetia, a breakaway province that lies in the Caucasus mountains between the two countries.
The global system of competition between rival power blocs has transformed the Caucasus – with its myriad of ethnic and historic rivalries – into a surrogate test of will between the US and Russia.
