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History often proceeds by jumps and zig-zags
The main conflict here – since the 1940s – has been between India and Pakistan. Disagreements are deeply rooted in the political culture of each country. The rise of the far right in India has only inflamed the conflict further.
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There must be bones under the paved street
On 6 August 1945, the United States military dropped a bomb that contained 64kg of uranium-235 over the city of Hiroshima (Japan). The bomb took just over 44 seconds to fall from 9,400 metres and detonated 580 metres above the Shima Surgical Clinic. Over 80,000 people died instantly. This was the first use of the nuclear bomb.
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Homage to OSPAAAL, the organisation of solidarity for the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America
We live world where the aspirations of the workers and peasants are arrogantly dismissed. It is a world where the violence of a B-52 bomber is seen as reasonable, whereas the cries for an end to hunger are seen as utopian.
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As the ocean waters rise, so do the islands of garbage
Trump has made nasty remarks about how Asian countries are the great polluters of the planet. Trump, in his shudderingly ignorant way, said that the United States of America would use its power to prevent Asians from destroying the planet.
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Revolutions are not the train ride, but the human race grabbing for the emergency brake
Impossible to deny the reality of poverty in our world. Studies of the data on income and wealth routinely show that billions of people on the planet live with minimal access to resources. These studies demonstrate that poverty cannot be measured merely by the financial resources that are not available; they demonstrate how billions of people have no access to electricity, safe drinking water, education, or health care.
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For the reasons that follow, that Country is currently not likely to be the United States
The largest delegation from outside Russia at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in early June came from China.
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Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature
On the one hand, people who spend most of their time working develop an understanding of the ‘practical transformation of the world’. This framework is implicit in the workers’ activity, since the worker–given the theft of their time–is often prevented from having a ‘clear theoretical consciousness of this practical activity’.
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Be careful of the crooked smile of powerful people
“For humanity, comrades,” writes Frantz Fanon at the close of his monumental The Wretched of the Earth, “we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man’. Terrible inequalities in our world keep humanity divided.
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The world divided by a line is a dead body cut in two
A war against Iran–as Hamid says–will be catastrophic, not only for Iran but for Eurasia. It would divide the world into two, vultures and hyenas feasting on both halves.
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The dogs of war are unchained once more
This week’s newsletter features an open letter to the President of Indonesia, written by Khamid Istakhori, General Secretary of Federasi SERBUK–a large trade union federation in Indonesia. He asks President Jokowi to use Indonesia’s presidency of the UNSC to denounce violations of international law against Venezuela.
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We are the shadow-ghosts, creeping back as the camp fires burn low
Professor Sandra Díaz, who teaches in Argentina’s National University of Cordoba and is the co-chair of the IPBES report, said that although bio-diversity and eco-diversity are ‘declining fast’, ‘we still have the means to ensure a sustainable future for people and the planet’.
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We have stolen his land. Now we must steal his limb
When the late South African artist Tito Zungu wanted to depict the world of the migrant labourer, he settled on the envelope. It was by infrequent letters that the migrant would be able to be in touch with family – letters dictated to professional letter writers at one end, which would be read out by professional letter readers at the other.
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We thought it was merely a stone, but it carried away our wealth
n Venezuela, the political leadership of the oligarchy beg for the men in green to set aside the Constitution, as Juan Guiadó and the Venezuelan right-wing opposition attempted a military coup in Venezuela this Tuesday.
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If war is an industry, how can there be peace in a capitalist World?
On 26 April 1937, twelve bombers of the German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria flew low over the Basque country of Spain in the midst of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). They tore down over the small town of Guernica, where they let loose their fiery arsenal. Almost two thousand people died in this defenceless town.
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This is the hour of madness
The title of this newsletter comes from a poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a poem called This Hour of Chain and Noose (Tauq o dar ka Mausam, 1951).
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Radical thinking must fall like a gentle mist, not a heavy downpour
The work of a radical artist and intellectual should be carried out in the manner of a gentle breeze and mild rain. It cannot be done with haste. It should be done over a long period and done patiently.
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You can’t have Democracy when you put the truth in prison
Lula will likely eat what he ate on his first day in prison: bread and butter with his coffee. He will know that across the planet there will be demonstrations in his name. ‘Lula Livre’ (Free Lula) the people will cry out. You’re not alone, they will say, você não está sozinho. It will give him hope.
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Singing in a cage is possible and so is happiness
Once more, punctually, Israel—with the vengeance of Zeus—has begun to bomb Gaza, from which the sounds and smells of war are never absent due to Israeli bombings. It helps Israel that the United States is fully behind its policy of annihilation.
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The sunrise will be the same for those who wake and those who never will
Disregard by the dominant powers of human lives in places such as Iraq has a long history. It goes back a hundred years.
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Killing the most beautiful things we own
The fight over the Amazon is not new, but the scale of its potential destruction has considerably increased. The protagonists of the murder of the Amazon are clear: capitalist firms of different scales and the political class that enables them.