Over 270 Marxists have now returned home to over 30 different countries after attending the International Marxist Tendency’s World School that took place in Bardonecchia, Italy, last week. The school demonstrated the tendency's activity and the strength of revolutionary ideas through the high political level, the number of enthusiastic young people in attendance, and the excellent application of Marxist theory to the mass movements developing around the globe today.

Yesterday, the long-awaited nuclear deal between Iran and six major world powers was signed. After 18 days of straight negotiations the parties announced a 100-page agreement which is to set in motion the scaling back of the Iranian nuclear agreement and the lifting of harsh sanctions on Iran. This brings to an end more than three decades of harsh economic sanctions imposed on Iran by US imperialism and marks a complete defeat of the US strategy of intimidation, blackmail and coercion of Iran.

On 25 June year, President Jacob Zuma released the report of the Farlam Commission, which was appointed by the government to investigate the killings of 44 people at the Lonmin mine in Marikana in August 2012. This includes the massacre of mineworkers on 16 August that year, when the police opened fire on the striking workers, killing 34 and injuring 78 more.

The world economy is tottering. This week it has been buffeted by two extremely turbulent financial storms - Greece and, suddenly, China, the world’s second largest economy. Globally, the system is extremely unbalanced, with massive wealth accumulating in tiny handfuls whilst the billioned masses must keep borrowing from these billionaires to make ends meet. This top heavy, blind and irrational system cannot stand on its own feet and the nation states are buckling under the weight. The sudden stock market collapse in China has been so vast that even the mighty Chinese government is incapable of controlling it.

On the 16th of May, more than 60,000 Guatemalan people took to the streets, occupying Constitution Square. On the 20th, thousands more returned to continue the protests. These protests by workers, youth and social organizations represent the most important protests since the signing of the Peace Accords of ‘96.

Over the recent period, beneath the appearance of relative calm in the South African Communist Party, serious divisions have began to open up. These divisions are manifesting themselves along fault lines which have existed for long periods of the party's existence. Now, under the raging organic crisis of Capitalism, the turbulence which accompanies it, the resultant instability in the ANC-led Tripartite Alliance and the emergence of formations to the left of the ANC, the cracks in the party have began to open wider and wider. The SACP now finds itself struggling to fight for its relevance. Sooner or later all the divisions must burst into the open which will further destabilize it and the already turbulent alliance.