Susan Ram, who is writing a book on the French Left for LeftWord Books (New Delhi), has a crisp assessment of the yellow vest (gilets jaunes) movement and of its fifth week of demonstration–Act V Macron Démission (Macron Resign). It is anger and determination that defines the yellow vest protest.

One in eight people across the world live in informal settlements. This, despite the “right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family” as declared by the International Declaration of Human Rights. Reality, however, is very far from this.

As AMLO begins his presidential term in Mexico, he has been confronted by years of neoliberal policies, policies crafted by institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, who praised the selling off of Mexico’s assets as a model. When protestors contest this agenda—as they recently did at the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires—, the reply from leaders comes written in tear gas. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of farmers and thousands more of those who stood with them marched across Delhi to demand a parliamentary session to address the agrarian crisis.

Earlier this month, in Savar (Bangladesh), over 1400 delegates came to the fourth People’s Health Assembly–first held in 2000 by popular health organisations to drive a global dynamic to champion public health measures. At the centre of the discussions were increased health inequalities–between the rich and the poor certainly, but also sharply between affluent states and states that have found their wealth robbed by colonialism and the adverse order produced over the past fifty years.

A few days from now–on 29-30 November–a very large number of people will gather in New Delhi, the capital of India, to say that they stand with India’s farmers (kisans).

Sitting in his office, Donald Trump meets with the head of his economic advisors Gary Cohn. Cohn jokes with Trump. He says, make a speech and say that the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border is ready to be built: the materials are on hand, labour is eager. The only thing that engineers are worrying about is how to spell–over the 2000-kilometre border–the word TRUMP.

Brazil’s election result is appalling. Jair Bolsonaro, who will take office early next year, will be the most extremist head of government on the planet. If he cuts down the Amazon Rain Forest–as he promises–it will be catastrophic for life.

‘We are losing the fight against famine’, said the UN’s Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock to the UN Security Council on 21 September. He was talking about Yemen, which has been bombarded by the monstrous anger of the Saudi-Emirati guns from March 2015.

The United Nations General Assembly opened its 73rd session this year with a massive downpour in New York City. Flood-waters licked at the edge of the city, as world leaders gathered inside the 18 acres of land on the Turtle Bay area of Manhattan island. U.S. President Donald Trump–as usual–stole all the headlines.

In Syria, the battle for the province of Idlib has begun. Over the course of the past few years, the remnants of the hardened fighters have retreated to this region on the Syria-Turkish border, where they have been under the overall command of an al-Qaeda inspired group.

The Syrian government has won the war in the country. Two barriers to total victory remain. First, that there are pockets of rebels in the towns around Damascus and there is the province of Idlib which is controlled by rebels. Second, there are the tracts of land that are held by the United States (in the north-east), by the Turks (in the north), by Israel (in the south-west) and by Hezbollah (in the west).

Raoul Peck, the Haitian lmmaker, opens his film—Der Junge Karl Marx (2017)—in the forests of Prussia. Peasants gather fallen wood. They look cold and hungry.… Some of the peasants die. Even fallen wood is not allowed to them.

The Benghazi council chose as its leader the colorless former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil.  Jalil’s brain is Mahmoud Jibril, a former head of the National Economic Development Board (NEDB).  A U.S. embassy cable from May 11, 2009 (09TRIPOLI386) describes Jibril as keen on a close relationship with the U.S. and eager “to create a […]

A Plenary Address at the American Studies Association Presidential Panel, San Antonio, Texas, 18 November 2010 For Ruthie Gilmore. I am an imposter here: not a real American Studies scholar.  I went to graduate school in the late 1980s to study History and Anthropology.  My interest was in the contemporary history of India.  When I […]

Scarcely a day after the WikiLeaks disclosures of U.S. State Department cables the U.S. political establishment went ballistic.  Some called for the assassination of WikiLeaks’ spokesperson, Julian Assange, whereas others wanted to amend the 1917 Espionage Act to target the website.  Targeted “denial of service” attacks shut down the web site, and then the political […]

Rajendra Pachauri heads TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute, based in New Delhi.  An engineer of the railways in his early career, Pachauri went to the United States to earn a PhD in industrial engineering and another in economics, after which he returned to India in 1981 to work with TERI.  In 1995, he joined […]

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob, When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job. They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead, Why should I be standing in […]

“Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we put […]