Catégorie : Politics

… to advance $1.2 billion debt relief plan – Published on Russia Today RT, Dec 1, 2013.

Iceland’s government has announced that it will be writing off up to 24,000 euros ($32,600) of every household’s mortgage, fulfilling its election promise, despite overwhelming criticism from international financial institutions.

The measure was introduced by the country’s prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, the leader of the Progressive Party which won the late-April elections on a promise of household debt relief.   Continuer la lecture de « Iceland thumbs nose at international opposition … »

Published on Spiegel Online International, by Bartholomäus Grill in Bagamayo, Tanzania, Nov 29, 2013. (Photo Gallery).

Chinese companies have pumped billions into Africa to secure access to natural resources, boosting countries’ economies along the way. Ordinary citizens aren’t reaping the benefits, though, and have become increasingly wary of the new investors.

In a three-part series, SPIEGEL is exploring fundamental changes occurring in Africa – a continent the West has long written off, but is now being embraced by other countries. This is Part I of the series. An introduction can be read here.   Continuer la lecture de « Billions from Beijing: Africans Divided over Chinese Presence, Part 1 »

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin No. 902, by Charles Smith, November 28, 2013.

The neoliberal assault on labour has now entered its fourth decade. While Canada’s labour union density continues to hover around thirty percent, that number hides declining density rates in the private sector. Equally concerning for the labour movement has been the long assault on the post-war labour freedoms to organize, bargain, and strike. As Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz have shown in their book, governments routinely seek to limit labour’s core freedoms, especially the right to strike. When Stephen Harper’s government claimed that the fragility of the Canadian economy was justification to take away the right of thousands of federal workers to strike, it became clear that strikes themselves were in danger of being legislated away … // Continuer la lecture de « Privacy and the Right to Strike in Canada »

Published on Spiegel Online International, by Andreas Lorenz, Nov 27, 2013 (Photo Gallery).

Each year, foreign agricultural corporations deprive thousands of Cambodian farmers of their fields — with the government’s help. Human rights groups claim German taxpayer money is used to fund a program that benefits land grabbers.

Everyone in the Cambodian village of Chouk remembers what happened on the morning of May 19, 2006, when bulldozers appeared on National Route 48, which cuts through the town. Men from a Thai company, Khon Kaen Sugar Industry PCL, presented the Cambodian villagers with documents and said: « This land now belongs to us. »   Continuer la lecture de « Land Grab: Foreign Firms Drive Cambodians from Farms »

• The Late Show – Special: Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 38.13 min, uploaded by se146np, Nov 11, 2012;
• Newsnight on responsible capitalism, Prof Eric Hobsbawm (19Jan12), 5.51 min, uploaded by liarpoliticians, Jan 20, 2012;
• How to Change the World, Socialist History Society, 25 Feb 2011, 33.56 min, uploaded by Adrian Cousins, March 1, 2011;
• Eric Hobsbawm: After the XXth Century: A World in Transition, 45.22 min, uploaded by fundacionvidanta, June 26, 2013;
• Eric Hobsbawm – Intellectuals and the Spanish Civil War, 54.58 min, uploaded by ashikmlakonja, August 31, 2012;   Continuer la lecture de « Eric Hobsbawm »