A Fiscal Revolution?
by TOM GILL
France is in revolt over tax. In recent weeks the protagonists have ranged from drivers of heavy goods vehicles, wealthy cereal farmers, and even the equestrian lobby . And, almost everybody in the depressed north western region of Brittany, it seems. Continue reading »
Several years ago, I spoke to two members of Allende’s government. Two who managed to survive. One of them recalled: “They used to threaten us, before the coup, before that terrible September 11, 1973: ‘Watch out, comrades, Jakarta is coming!’” Continue reading »
Four Chilean Student Leaders Make the Jump to Parliament
by JONATHAN FRANKLIN
Santiago, Chile.
Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo. Unapologetically Marxist.
Champagne. Cumbia music. Street parties. The Chilean student leaders who upended their nation’s political agenda in 2011 with dozens of street protested on Sunday transformed their activist power into a mini bloc of student activists. Four of the young students - Giorgio Jackson, Camila Vallejo, Karol Cariola and Gabriel Boric — won congressional seats and will take seats in the Chilean congress in March.
“We have battled for some time for our ideals for what we think chile deserves and the transformations that Chile needs,” said Vallejo, the 25 year old former student body president as she celebrated on Sunday evening. “It has been a long fight to open up the [political] spaces to win this via the elections process and the street fight. In those two environments we have advanced and won.” Continue reading »
What happens to a country when its young people stop having sex? Japan is finding out… Abigail Haworth investigates
By Nancy Hanover, wsws.org
The unprecedented use of bankruptcy courts to enable the large-scale seizure of public art in Detroit is a fundamental attack on the rights of the working class everywhere. Continue reading »
By Mona Chollet, Le Monde Diplomatique
Originally 10 APRIL 2013,
Blond young women stripping off their shirts to protest for…women’s rights. Le Monde Diplomatique’s Mona Chollet reviews the purportedly feminist protest group called the Femen, finding little evidence of feminism and a budding affinity with France’s anti-Muslim right. Amina Tyler, Alia el Mahdi and other young Femen of the Arab Spring would do well to have a second look at their Ukrainian mentors, she suggests.
Continue reading »
Nairobi
Thick smoke hangs above the access road to The Westgate – the up-market shopping mall that serves mainly expats, UN staff and Kenyan elites. Continue reading »
Ndabo Mzimela picks up the pieces after the eThekwini land invasion unit demolished shacks at Cato Crest at the weekend. Picture: Zanele Zulu
There will be blood
by RICHARD PITHOUSE,
Durban, South Africa.
Nkosinathi Mngomezulu was shot in the stomach on Saturday morning. He was shot at the Marikana land occupation at Stop 1, Cato Crest in the city of Durban, South Africa during an eviction. He’s currently in the Intensive Care Unit of the King Edward Hospital. His comrades fear that he may be attacked in the hospital. They’ve not been allowed to post their own guard but they’re making sure that he’s always surrounded by a large group during visiting hours. Continue reading »
The Case of Spain
by VICENTE NAVARRO
Olli Rehn, typical of the technocratic vermin doing the dirty work for the world plutocracy. These people are not the cure but the disease.
The Vice President of the European Commission, Olli Rehn, in charge of Economic and Monetary Affairs is becoming the most unpopular Commissioner in Spain. He emphasizes over and over again that labor market rigidities are causing the high unemployment in Spain. Labor rigidities is a polite way of accusing the Spanish trade unions for the high rate of unemployment that exists in Spain. Indeed, labor rigidities are supposed to mean that, because the unions have been able to get job security for some workers, employers have it too difficult to fire them. This supposed rigidity has not stopped them, however, from firing nearly 4 million workers out of the whole labor force of 16 million). According to Olli Rehn, employers should have it even easier to get rid of workers. The more workers they can fire, the more workers they will hire. Continue reading »
Excluding the Exclusionary?
Police at the al-Fath mosque in Cairo – scene of firefight between security forces and what they claim was a gunman from the Muslim Brotherhood. Photograph: Muhammad Hamed/Reuters (Guardian, UK)
by MICHAEL GASPER and MOHAMED YOUSRY, Counterpunch
In the immediate aftermath of the coup that deposed president Muhammad Morsi on July 3, 2013, it looked as though the Muslim Brothers had decided to embrace all options including violence. In the heat of the moment, some members of the Muslim Brothers and a number of their supporters waved flags associated with militant Islamist groups, such as al-Qaeda, and issued rampant threats against the deposed president’s opponents. After a quick recalibration however, the Muslim Brothers wrapped themselves in Egyptian flags and brought women and children with them to demonstrations proclaiming that their resistance to the military backed government would be non-violent. Continue reading »
What Really Was Underlying the Edward Snowden Asylum Standoff
by STEVE HORN
Putin: The state’s motives are never simple and rarely transparent.
The much-discussed Snowden affair is only the latest surface-level event in a geopolitical standoff between the U.S. and Russa over natural gas.
Nearly two months ago, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden handed smoking-gun documents on the international surveillance apparatus to The Guardian and The Washington Post in what’s become one of the most captivating stories in recent memory. Continue reading »
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times
Stop. Look at the photos. Linger on dozens of bodies lined up in a makeshift morgue. How can the appalling bloodbath in Egypt be justified? Take your pick. Either it’s Egypt’s remix of Tiananmen Square, or it’s the bloodbath that is not a bloodbath, conducted by the leaders of the coup that is not a coup, with the aim of fighting “terror.”
Source: RT
Egyptians mourn over bodies wrapped in shrouds at a mosque in Cairo on August 15, 2013 (AFP Photo/Mahmoud Khaled)
Egypt’s “bloodbath that is not a bloodbath” has shown that the forces of hardcore suppression and corruption reign supreme, while foreign interests — the House of Saud, Israel and the Pentagon — support the military’s merciless strategy. Continue reading »
