-
The weakness of progressive Latin American governments in these precarious times: The Thirty-Fourth Newsletter (2024)
Unwilling to accept election results in Venezuela, the OAS, led by the U.S., passed a resolution essentially asking the country to violate its own election laws. Many countries with supposedly centre-left or left governments have joined the U.S. in proposals that seek to undermine Venezuelan democratic processes, a reflection of the contradictions confronting the current progressive cycle of governments and weakness of the left in Latin America today.
-
Corporate or community-led? Africa’s agricultural future at a crossroads
The post-Malabo process to determine the next decade of agricultural policy has so far been characterised by outside influence and exclusivity.
-
First, Elon Musk made us pay for “free speech”; Now he decides who’s allowed it
The ‘saviour of free speech’ is cracking down on criticism of Israel’s genocide. What he calls the ‘faaaaar left’ is in his crosshairs. It’ll be erased so utterly, you won’t remember it was ever there.
-
Chevron and Israel: Profits above human rights
Big oil and gas company Chevron is deeply entwined with the Israeli state.
-
Morocco pardons 4,800 jailed for cultivating cannabis–so they can farm legally
The world’s largest cannabis producer aims to encourage legal cultivation of the plant and export it for industrial or medical purposes
-
In Houston, back-to-school means back-to-privatization
Diane Ravitch, author of “Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools”, has dug deep to uncover who the leaders of the nationwide public school privatization movement are and assembled a list that includes: Jeff Bezos, the Koch Brothers, the Walton Family, Bill Gates, Betsy DeVos, Michael Bloomberg, Laurene Powell Jobs, Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, and the Chamber of Commerce.
-
The pitfalls of growth under unrestricted trade
The French economist J B Say had believed that there could never be a problem of aggregate demand in any economy, that whatever was produced was ipso facto demanded.
-
The new Chutzpah
Many of you know that the Yiddish word chutzpah means extreme self-confidence or audacity.
-
ALBA Movements: Neither cohabitation nor transition! Venezuela has decided!
On Friday, ALBA Movements, an organization bringing together grassroots movements from 25 countries in the Americas, issued a statement rejecting the claims made by the presidents of Colombia and Brazil, who proposed the formation of a cohabitation government in Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro was re-elected in the July 28 elections.
-
Biden claims of progress in Gaza truce deal ‘illusion’: Abu Zuhri to AFP
Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri on Saturday dismissed optimistic talk by U.S. President Joe Biden that a Gaza truce is nearer after negotiations in the Gulf emirate of Qatar.
-
From growth fetish to post-growth
Gus Speth – “My family and I spent 25 years in Washington DC. They were good years, and every morning I began with coffee and The Washington Post. The newspaper was a wonderful companion—and reliably progressive. But there is something going on there now on the editorial board that I find, well, weird.”
-
Behind India’s Iron Curtain
In this week in 2019, India enforced a communications blackout in Jammu and Kashmir. A new writing project chronicles the crackdown which followed and how its techniques of oppression were borrowed from Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
-
Mijaín Lopez: The Cuban hero of the Paris Olympics who loves Fidel Castro
The hero of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games isn’t Tom Cruise, Armand Duplantis or Novak Djokovic. The hero is Cuban and his name is Mijaín Lopez.
-
Thailand aborts the colour revolution
The curtain has come down on the abortive colour revolution in Thailand with the country’s Constitutional Court ordering the dissolution on Wednesday of the anti-establishment opposition party Move Forward, widely regarded as a U.S. proxy.
-
U.S. to keep funding Israeli military unit that killed elderly Palestinian American
Earlier reports said the U.S. was going to sanction the unit, Netzah Yehuda, but Israeli officials lobbied against the plan.
-
What’s behind regime change in Bangladesh
Violent regime change in the South Asian country of Bangladesh unfolded rapidly and mostly by stealth as the rest of the world focused on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, growing tensions in the Middle East and a simmering confrontation between the U.S. and China in the Asia-Pacific region.
-
X marks the spot: Digital/settler-colonialism and Musk’s meeting with Netanyahu
Through X and SpaceX (particularly Starlink,) Elon Musk is an important figure in understanding digital/settler-colonialism.
-
The earth can’t endure Nato’s ambitions
NATO’s growing militarism doesn’t just risk widening war, but is deeply implicated in the mounting climate catastrophe, argues Nandita Lal.
-
Sheikh Hasina was a time-tested friend
There is a problem, fundamentally, in viewing the regime change in Bangladesh as a ‘stand-alone’ event.
-
U.S. and UK ambassadors to skip Nagasaki memorial amid controversy
The U.S. and UK ambassadors to Japan will not attend the Nagasaki atomic bomb victim memorial on August 9 due to the Nagasaki administration’s decision not to invite the Israeli envoy.