Lead story

Ukraine: the way forward

by our European Affairs correspondent

US-led imperialism is desperately trying to prop-up the self-appointed Ukrainian regime in Kiev following the Russian intervention in Crimea. The Kremlin is also threating to deploy troops in other parts of the former Soviet republic to protect civilians, particularly the ethnic Russians in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Some 675,000 Ukrainians have fled to Russia following the fascist coup in Kiev and the banning of pro-Russian parties and the use of the Russian language for official purposes.

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No hospital safe

THE GIANT union Unite last week launched a digital campaign against Clause 119 of the Care Bill, now being rushed through Parliament, which would give the Secretary for Health the power to close any NHS hospital trust in the country, regardless of its performance, including its financial condition.

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Editorial

A new Crimean War? Not necessarily

UKRAINE and the Crimea have become a pivotal point in the power play between United States imperialism on one side and Russia on the other. Putin and the government he heads are definitely not socialist. But they do not seek world hegemony in the same way that the United States does. Putin is not the puppet of a megalomaniac military industrial complex in the same way that Obama is.

Russia is well aware that US imperialism has designs to bring it down as a rival capitalist power. When the Cold War ended the Warsaw Pact was dissolved and naïve progressives imagined that Nato would also become redundant and disappear. Instead it has grown and settled itself all over eastern Europe, the Middle East and is now trying to encircle China as well and make inroads into Africa.

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