Wednesday, 11th January 2012
In Depth
In Highgate Cemetery, three miles from where I write, Karl Marx's body lies a-mouldering in his grave; and, for so many years, it seemed that his critique of the capitalist system was also safely buried. More ...
What lessons can be drawn from China's spectacular and sustained economic growth? More ...
The way that Russia marked the 15th Anniversary of the end of the USSR, the final events of which took place between the 8th and 31st of December 1991, has caused consternation in the Western media. More ...
The Ma’an News service is a valuable resource. While its TV stations inform and entertain the locals, its news agency (MNA) sends the world 24-hour news from beleaguered Palestine. Viewers of its well-designed website receive minute-by-minute information in Arabic, Hebrew and English, with local news from ten districts in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, accompanied by high quality, and often shocking, photographs. More ...
The greatest successes in industrial development and prosperity of the last fifty years have been produced by state ownership and investment, central planning and regulated monopoly rather than by the 'free market'. More ...
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Current Affairs
by Noah Tucker
One of the most insightful analyses- and certainly the most hilarious- of the emerging power relationships in the European Union can be found in a three minute video which recently appeared on YouTube. It is a spoof of ‘Dinner for One’, the English comedy sketch which is almost unknown to the English, but is watched on TV by scores of millions of Germans every New Year’s Eve. More ...
by Gareth Porter
President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are engaged in intense maneuvering over Netanyahu's aim of entangling the United States in an Israeli war against Iran. More ...
by Noah Tucker
The claim that ‘big government’ or ‘state overspending’ is the cause of our ills puts on a mask of truth by reference to the worsening problem of sovereign debt, which threatens not only the Eurozone but the global economy. The reality, however, is at odds with the right wing explanation. More ...
by Mark Burton
Nearly 53 years have passed since the triumph of the Cuban revolution and 50 years since the imposition of a strangulating economic blockade of Cuba by the USA. So this is a good moment to reflect on the revolution, its achievements and challenges and to ask what it means for progressive movements in the world today. More ...
by Charles Hardy
Whenever I have asked someone in Venezuela if spring comes before or after summer, some answer “before” and others “after.” Almost all add that they really are not sure. More ...
by Ali Abunimah
With its biased composition including the hard core ally of Israel Alvaro Uribe, its agenda ignoring the realities of Israel's violent occupation of Palestine, and accepting Israel's withholding of evidence, this report for the Secretary general of the UN has no credibility. More ...
Headlines
The following article on the death of Moammar Gaddafi was published as an editorial in the 'Daily Times' of Pakistan. More ...
People & Culture
September this year marks the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Siege of Leningrad, one of the most appalling yet heroic chapters in the Soviet people’s resistance to the Nazi invasion. Lasting from 8th September 1941 until 27th January 1944, it was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history with a huge loss of life, but the city never surrendered to the Nazis. More ...
Britain
The list of official guests at the British Prime Minister’s country home illustrates a society dominated by multi-millionaire businessmen, among them some of the UK’s most egregious tax avoiders. More ...
International
Since the Arab uprisings of early 2011, countless hours of video have been produced by the media corporations, exceeded only by the volumes of commentary via print press and electronic sources. Preoccupied with the youthfulness and technological acumen of some of the protesters, this critical mass of information has all but ignored the most glaring and possibly regrettable aspect of these collective struggles for national freedom- that they belong to a continuous struggle of almost a hundred years. More ...
International
Only 14% of the British have a positive view of Israel, with 66% having a negative opinion, according to an international survey; and the number expressing negative views of Israel rose by 16% from the previous year. This increasingly unfavourable perception of the zionist state was shown also in the other Western countries included in the survey, even in the USA. More ...
Headlines
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) stated that Cuba is the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean without child malnutrition, while 146 million children are suffering from that scourge worldwide. More ...
International
On August fifth it was announced that the fifteen-year sentence arising out of the March fourth Provincial Court trial against Alan Gross, a US AID contractor, was upheld by the Cuban Supreme Court. The American citizen appealed the decision of the Provincial Court in Cuba's highest level of the judiciary on June 22, the result of which was made public on August fifth. More ...
Opinions
On Friday night (5th August) Madrid’s city centre offered a glimpse of what Western democracies have become, as thousands of unarmed nonviolent civilians with their hands up in the air shouting “these are our weapons” and “this is a dictatorship” were beaten by police commandos in full riot gear. More ...
International
While “Europe's slow-motion financial collapse” – as Mother Jones magazine described it in a June 6th article – continues to unravel, Spain, like other European states continues to implement anti-social-neo-liberal policies with strong opposition from the citizenry. More ...
International
Prince Turki al Faisal, an influential member of the Saudi royal family and godfather of the Saudi security establishment, has issued an ultimatum to United States President Barack Obama: if America blocks UN recognition of Palestinian statehood, Saudia Arabia will be forced to defect from its position as the USA’s key foriegn policy tool among the Arab countries. More ...
Britain
On 18th June 2011, Ignacio Galan, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Scottish Power, had his annual salary increased to £10.5 million, including a performance-related £6 million bonus. This pay rise, no doubt, took account of his contribution to the profits of the Spanish-based transnational conglomerate Iberdrola, which owns Scottish Power, in raising its prices to UK consumers by 10% for electricity and 19% for gas- thus leading the pack of energy suppliers in a second round of major price rises this year. More ...