Auteur/autrice : Heidi Barathieu-Brun

Linking human rights and education in a revised Constitution has huge implications for those training teachers – Published on Times Higher Education THE, by Audrey Osler, July 17, 2014.

… The festivities are particularly noteworthy this year for another reason: Norway has revised its Constitution. Yet it’s not just the language of the Constitution that’s been updated. Buried in the document is a new clause addressing education, which may have considerable significance for those working in higher education, particularly those engaged in teachers’ professional education … // Continuer la lecture de « Norway’s quiet revolution »

Published on Russia Today RT, by Dr. Roslyn Fuller, July 21, 2014.

… For example, the IMF and World Bank repeatedly loaned to Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator of the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) in order to keep him – and the enormous natural resources within his country – out of the communist camp during the Cold War. Mobutu blew the cash on whatever struck his fancy and the people of the Congo spent decades trying to pay back the money – in fact, by the late 1980s they had paid billions of dollars just in fees related to the nation’s debt, never mind the debt itself. Such irresponsible and short-sighted lending trapped the citizens of the DRC, and many others like them, in a perpetual debt cycle.   Continuer la lecture de « Refusing to share: How the West created BRICS New Development Bank »

Published on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, July 21, 2014.

One way to induce a Pavlovian reflex in mainstream economists is to invoke the expression “free trade”. Conventional wisdom holds that more trade is always better; only Luddites and protectionists are against it. That’s one big reason why the toxic Trans Pacific Partnership TPP and its evil twin, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership TTIP, have gotten virtually no critical scrutiny, save from more free-thinking economists like Dean Baker. They have been sold as “free trade” deals and no Serious Economist wants to besmirch his reputation by appearing to be opposed to more liberalized trade.   Continuer la lecture de « More Challenges to “More ‘Free Trade’ is Always Better” Orthodoxy »

Video – The Ascent of Money: A Financial History by Niall Ferguson, Epsd. 1-5 FULL, 240.14 min, uploaded by Spirit of Revelation, Nov 7, 2011 (again a chance for those who have still not got it).

Other Links:   Continuer la lecture de « … rich, richer … poor, poorer … »

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin no. 1011, by Dan La Botz, July 17, 2014.

… Electoral Breakthrough?

In November 2013, the statistics seemed to be confirmed by the stunning victory of socialist Kshama Sawant in Seattle that attracted the attention of both the U.S. left and the major news media. The victory of Socialist Alternative candidate Sawant seemed to suggest that something might be changing politically in America. Now, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who openly calls himself socialist but is not a a member of any political party, says that he is considering a run for President of the United States, though he is not clear about whether he will run as an independent or a Democrat.   Continuer la lecture de « The Working Class and Left Politics: Back on the American Radar »