During Barack Obama’s visit to Australia in November 2011, the US and Australian governments announced the establishment of a permanent Marine presence in Darwin, located on South East Asia’s doorstep. By 2014, some 2, 500 Marines plus associated hardware such as military aircraft, tanks, artillery, and amphibious assault vehicles will be based near the […]
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News updates or analysis.
Europe’s Debt Crisis Deepens
Over the weekend, Fitch — the major rating company that, with its fellow majors, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, dominate the business of assessing the riskiness of debt instruments — took a highly publicized step. It downgraded the credit-worthiness of the sovereign debts of many European countries. What a spectacle! These rating companies were distinguished […]
Tunisia: The Powers of the New President
President Moncef Marzouki, Leader of the Congress for the Republic: “See, I’ve taken the oath. What power do I have now?”
Reports on Oil Workers’ Struggle in Kazakhstan
Introduction by Timofei Dnieperin The following reports are from Socialist Resistance of Kazakhstan. Their website is <www.socialismkz.info/>. The background to all this is that the oil sector in western Kazakhstan has been hampered for seven months now by strikes and work stoppages (see Joanna Lillis “Kazakhstan: Labor Dispute Dragging Energy Production Down,” Eurasianet, October […]
The Committee to Protect Journalists Is Mistaken About Turkey
According to the tally of the American Committee to Protect Journalists, there are only eight journalists in jail in Turkey. We, as members of the Freedom for Journalists Platform, comprised of 94 national and local media associations, would like to point out that this is a grave error, unless of course it is deliberate […]
Erdoğan’s Way
See how Recep Tayyip Erdoğan uses TMY (Terörle Mücadele Yasası, Anti-Terror Law) and ÖYM (Özel Yetkili Mahkemelerin, Special Courts) to deal with anyone who stands in his way. . . . Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Cf. Ayça Çubukçu, “Turkey: The ‘Progressive’ Land of Repression” (Guardian, 11 December 2011). | Print
Egypt: #OccupyCabinet
It all began with the kidnapping and torture of Aboudi Ibrahim, a protester from the #OccupyCabinet sit-in: A first military attack on Tahrir Square today: An army solider strips the shirt off a female protestor, beats her, and abuses her: If you look closely, you see the attack on her and what appears to be […]
Civil Society, NGOs, and the Public Sphere
The great turning point in Marx’s work is his discovery that class relations traverse the whole capitalist society. After working with categories he inherited from liberalism, such as the state and civil society, he made what he called an “anatomy of civil society” and therein encountered classes and class struggle. In the last several decades, […]
Russia: Don’t Step on That Rake Again!
From the editorial board of Skepsis, an appeal to the Russian speople to not to be fooled into thinking their problems can be solved by elections. Don’t Step on That Rake Again! The public mood is changing. Even before the elections, on the streets of Moscow and Petersburg, in the major cities’ (and even […]
Tough on Euros, Weak on Nazis
Hurray! Merkel won the day! It took a long night of backroom bargaining, but except for that Tory, David Cameron, all European Union members agreed to save the euro, save the economy, save the world! It had been on the brink of disaster, Sarkozy warned on the eve of the meeting: unless we reach agreement […]
Ireland: Whatever You Do, Don’t Get Sick, Don’t Get Old, and Don’t Be Young
On December 6th, 2011, the Irish government announced a new and harsh austerity plan through a tight budget. The annual budget, now stripped of a regular rise in social welfare payments, is part of a dreaded aspect of living in 21st century Ireland, a country plagued by a seemingly incurable economic depression. Cuts were made […]
Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law
Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law (TMY), aimed at the press. . . . Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Cf. “500 students, 65 journalists, 8 MPs detained under Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law” (Carlos Latuff, 9 December 2011). | Print
What Happened to the Heroes of Tahrir?
The 19th of November was another bloody day in the Egyptian Revolution that over the course of the following days turned into a massacre. After security forces’ attack on a group of demonstrators, tens of thousands flooded back into Tahrir Square, demanding that the Supreme Council step down. The security forces and military responded with […]
Radical Potential in Every Community
Amy Sonnie and James Tracy. Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power. New York: Melville House Printing, 2011. ix-201 pp. $16.95 (paperback). Most current academic discussion of radical movements populated by whites is devoted to understanding ultra-right movements based largely on demands for less government intervention and nostalgia for a lost time in […]
Politically Sacked Bahraini Workers Appeal for Solidarity
Over 1,000 Bahraini workers sacked for political reasons held a protest in front of the Labor Ministry in Isa Town, Bahrain on 11 December 2011. The number of workers sacked by the Bahraini regime in its attempt to quell the uprising that began on 14 February 2011 is estimated to be about 4,500. Photo via […]
Cuban Exile Flotilla Illustrated
Manuel Alfredo: “Attention! Exclusive photo of the main boat of the third-rate gusano flotilla.” Manuel Alfredo: “Exclusive photo of the captain of the third-rate gusano flotilla: Captain Gusa” Miriam Gina Ruje: “Breaking: Photo of the admiral of the third-rate gusano flotilla refusing to abandon his boat.” Manuel Alfredo Martínez Pérez is the Webmaster of […]
Egypt’s Nour Party Leader: Onward to Salafi Pragmatism, Keeping Good Relations with US and Peace Treaty with Israel
Cairo — Emad Abdel Ghafour, the head of the Nour Party representing the Salafi school of Islamic fundamentalism, which is expected to make a great leap forward in Egypt’s first parliamentary elections since the collapse of the Mubarak regime, made the party’s foreign policy public, in an exclusive interview with Jiji Press. “We’ll strive […]
Labor Has a Legitimate Lien on Capital
When Steve Miller, the vulture capitalist who drove Delphi into the ditch of America’s dreams, declared, “Bankruptcy is a growth industry,” he was smiling, but he wasn’t joking. Bankruptcy in the US isn’t a sign of economic distress or mismanagement. It’s a business plan — calculated, cunning, and void of redeeming social value. American Airlines […]
Vintage Foursome (Explicit)
Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Cf. “Saudi-backed Bahraini forces have attacked hundreds of anti-government protesters in the capital, Manama, as they were marching towards the epicenter of the country’s uprising. Witnesses say regime forces on Wednesday fired tear gas and rubber bullets to prevent demonstrators from reaching the site of Pearl Square, now called […]
Testimony of Mohamed Mounir, Tortured by Egypt’s Military
On the night of Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011, just a week before parliamentary elections in Egypt began, 31-year old Mohamed Mounir went to Tahrir Square to join thousands of Egyptians once again demonstrating there. The demonstrations all over the country flared up again after the Egyptian security forces brutally attacked a group of demonstrators in […]
