June 15, 2014 -- Sinn Féin -- Sinn Féin Leader Gerry Adams delivered the annual address at the Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown, County Kildare today (pictured above). In the course of a wide ranging speech Gerry Adams said that Sinn Féin wants to be in government to change Ireland for the better:

We want to tackle disadvantage, unemployment and inequality and improve the quality of life and standards of living for people across Ireland – particularly those people who are today struggling under the burden of austerity. We want to deliver on issues such as housing, health and jobs. Sinn Féin is deeply committed to the peaceful and democratic ending of Partition to a new agreed Ireland.

But Sinn Fein will not do is what the Labour Party has done —go into office to give cover to the agenda of conservative parties, repeating again the failed political history of this State over the past 80 years...

The Sinn Féin Leader concluded his address by saying Sinn Féin is committed to is the radical republican politics of Wolfe Tone:

We are about creating a New Republic, with new politics and a new way of doing things that puts fairness and equality at the heart of how this country is governed.

US Republican and Democrat politicians on the stage at the Maidan Square.

By Viktor Shapinov, translated from the Ukrainian website Liva (The Left), translated by Renfrey Clarke for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

June 13, 2014 -- The social and class origins of the Ukrainian crisis have not been well researched. Attention has been focused mainly on the political side of events, and their socio-economic basis has been allowed to drop from sight. What were the class forces behind the overthrow of the Yanukovich regime, the installing of a new regime in Kiev, and the rise of the anti-Maidan and of the movement in the south-east?