On 24 October, Fred Weston and Hamid Alizadeh from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International sat down for another special podcast episode focusing on three flashpoints of world politics: Sinwar's assassination, Zelensky’s peace plan, and the BRICS summit.

The comrades look behind the headlines, starting with what the capitalist media have been saying about the assassination of Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas. The killing was greeted by a wave of gloating from Israel and Saudi Arabia. But Israel – which released a video of his death on the frontline – has inadvertently turned Sinwar into a hero and has fueled defiance of Israel and its allies in the whole region.

The second article looks at Zelensky’s desperate ‘victory plan’, which pleads for admission to NATO and long-range missiles with which to strike Russia. But this is completely untenable. Ukraine is heading towards an inevitable, brutal defeat, and now the western imperialists who provoked this war in the first place are preparing to betray Ukraine and abandon it to its fate.

Finally, the comrades discussed the BRIC summit which is being held in Russia. Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, the West has sought to isolate Russia. But the summit shows that this has completely failed. Russia was not only joined by Iran and China, and other western rivals, but US allies like India, Saudi Arabia, as well as the secretary general of the UN. This is a reflection of the fact that, as the power of US imperialism enters relative decline, other countries are hedging their bets, and balancing between the different blocs in the world economy.

This episode was streamed live on Youtube. Once again, we’d appreciate any feedback on this new style of podcast.

On the 16 October, Jorge Martín and Hamid Alizadeh from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International sat down to talk about the genocide in Gaza, the war in Lebanon, and the crisis facing the European economy.

We once more dive into the pages of the billionaire press of the past week, in order to expose the truth behind the headlines, illuminate the processes driving the chaos on the world stage, and to explain how we as communists can pick out the truth.

Click here to listen on Twitter Spaces.

This week, they discussed: a New York Times exposé on the IDF’s barbaric practice of using Palestinian prisoners as human shields, a practice fully in keeping with Israel’s genocidal policy in Gaza which reflects the fact that no amount of lives or ‘international laws’ can stand in the way of the interests of imperialism; a Reuters article analysing the US’ role in aiding and abetting Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, an expression of the relative decline facing the world’s foremost imperialism power; and a Bloomberg summary of a paper written by Italian ex-PM Mario Draghi, which lays out the enormous crisis and stagnation facing European capitalism, which has been devastated by the repercussions of the Ukraine war.

After the enthusiastic feedback we received following the last instalment, we will be releasing episodes of this series weekly, alongside Spectre of Communism. We are still experimenting with this new style of podcast, so you can help us by sending your feedback on the format, as well as suggestions for articles to discuss in the future.

On the 11 October, comrades Jorge Martín and Hamid Alizadeh of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International recorded a special podcast episode on Gaza, Ukraine and world relations. Instead of our regular format, this one addresses the burning questions of the day in a slightly different format.

Click here to listen now on Twitter Spaces.

The comrades have taken a selection of articles from mainstream newspapers, in order to pick apart the real interests and processes at play in an increasingly stormy world situation.

These include: a piece exposing the barbarism that imperialism has created in Gaza from the New York Times, a rarity on account of the self-censorship of the western press; an insane inversion of reality in the Middle East from the Daily Telegraph, in which Iran is made out to be the aggressors in the region and an existential threat to mankind, whilst Israel and the West are painted as doves; and figures from the Ukrainian outlet Strana that reveal, despite all the propaganda from the Zelensky regime and the West, that the Ukrainian forces are on the brink of collapse.

This podcast was streamed via Twitter Spaces, and at this stage is something of an experiment. Since the launch of the Spectre of Communism podcast and the readers’ survey in the summer, we’ve had a lot of enthusiastic feedback about our audio-visual content. Further feedback on this type of more conversational podcast by our readers and listeners would be most welcome.