Archive | Commentary

Progressive South Korean citizens have been watching with impending dread the deepening threats of political repression since the former prosecutor Yoon Suk Yeol assumed the South Korean presidency. On Wednesday, January 18, the Yoon administration took off its gloves.

If we really want to reverse wage stagnation our unions must use productivity improvement as bargaining power, even withdrawing it, rather than problem-solving it in elite tripartite consultations. Here’s why.

The death of South Korean dictator Chun Doo Hwan signals the consolidation of a false media narrative that is misleading and dangerous.

It is not uncommon to see U.S. citizens point to Denmark as a socialist alternative. And yet, just like in the United States, capital accumulation is the guiding principle in Danish society.

According to the newspaper Jeju Today, the Yoon government is claiming that screening the North Korean film The Story of Our Home, shown in South Korea in February 2019 as part of a national reunification festival, violated SK National Security Law.  It is now investigating the organizers of the film screening three years later.

Today the Linke is tragically split, on both political approaches and personalities.… [M]ost worrisome is the split about the present war. Some in the Left downplay the role of NATO, call for total condemnation of Russian imperialism and total military support for the Ukraine, in agreement with most media positions.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change went into effect in March 1994. Yet, of the twenty-seven meetings that the UNFCCC has held to date, the most recent one, in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt, was the most inconsequential.

It was a packed room for the Trinity College Dublin Philosophical Society debate on whether private property should be abolished. I was the first speaker and spoke in an impassioned way for the motion. There was much expression of assent in the room.

Nine political prisoners of the Mapuche people in southern Chile have been on hunger strike since November 27. Now, their protest has reached a dangerous and crucial moment.

As a rainbow of social movements in Peru prepare for a general strike starting on 4 January the country is polarised between party politicians’ intrigues and action of the masses on the streets. 

Workers in the United States once united across trade and background to fight for the 8-hour workday. Today, many lament how weak the labor movement has become, often pointing to attacks from the right to strip unions and workers of power.

As we enter into a new year and a new era of fighting Covid-19—while anticipating the new viruses that will inevitably emerge—the hope is that the world can learn from these hard-earned lessons, act and cooperate using science, not rumors, and embody a spirit of international solidarity, not stigma.

Timor-Leste was proclaimed by the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN) as a sovereign state on November 28, 1975.

The International Labour Organisation’s Global Wage Report 2022–23 tracks the horrendous collapse of real wages for billions of people around the planet.

1. We take winter for granted as the frozen backdrop that gives so many Christmas traditions their meaning. Even in warm climates, frosted landscapes persist in the holiday imaginary. The origins of this setting lay in the Pagan roots of the season. Typically held around the darkest of days, the Winter Solstice, Pagan Yule was […]

In 2013, Edward Snowden’s leak of documents pertaining to the inner workings of National Security Agency (NSA) sparked international revelations about the reach and unaccountability of Washington’s international surveillance apparatus. One series of documents that remain understudied, however, concern similar activities orchestrated by the Canadian government.

Within the heterogenous tradition of Marxism there are two diametrically opposed conceptions of popular culture: the elitist and vanguardist.

“When British capitalism depended on the West Indies,” Eric Williams wrote in 1938, “they ignored slavery or defended it. When British capitalism found the West Indian monopoly a nuisance, they destroyed West Indian slavery.”

Challenging the western monetary system, the Eurasia Economic Union is leading the Global South toward a new common payment system to bypass the U.S. Dollar.

In the last week of October, João Pedro Stedile, a leader of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil and the global peasants’ organisation La Via Campesina, went to the Vatican to attend the International Meeting of Prayer for Peace, organised by the Community of Sant’Egídio.