February 2012

Fifteen years ago, Le Monde diplomatique first mentioned a tax on financial transactions . At the time, the value of these transactions was 15 times the entire world’s gross annual product. Today, it is almost 70 times. Back then we had barely heard of subprime loans and no one imagined there could be a sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Most European socialists, under the spell of Tony Blair, were all for “financial innovation”. In the United States, Bill Clinton was about to encourage deposit (...)

US radicals came up a century ago with sound proposals for a maximum income, enforced through progressive taxation, to ensure that the rich couldn’t so easily buy political influence, as well as to adjust inequality

Wages used to be none of the EU’s business. But following the German example, lower pay (or more hours for the same money) has become normalised, and is now required

There was relief in China, Taiwan and Washington in January when Taiwan’s outgoing president Ma Ying-jeou, who supports closer ties with mainland China, was re-elected with a comfortable majority. His opponent, Tsai Ing-wen from the Democratic Progressive Party, who seemed likely to topple him, favours formal independence for Taiwan

When North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, died, there was widespread concern about the consequences, especially in the West. But his son seems to have succeeded smoothly: the country will not collapse, implode or explode. The succession appears to be safe, and may last a long time

Viktor Orbán and his rightwing government are interested only in a young and entrepreneurial middle class, conservative and nationalist. For everybody else, there is no encouragement or financial support

The Ba’ath Party under Assad runs Syria as it ran Iraq under Saddam. An external invasion was needed to topple Saddam — will Assad fall of his own accord?

The idea seems good: try pirates where they’ve been taken after capture. But the trial of a group of Somalis brought in at the conclusion of an army raid was a political show

In testimonies collected and published by the NGO Breaking the Silence, we learn what Israeli soldiers did, and were expected to do, in the West Bank and Gaza in the past decade, to impose the occupation

Senegal’s constitutional court in late January cleared President Wade to stand for a third term in the coming elections. Protests swept the country at this news for, under Wade, a once prosperous economy has dropped behind that of its neighbours

Wikipedia last month joined blackout protests against US anti-piracy moves. Now cyber protestors, safe in their anonymity, are able to gang together briefly in support of specific causes

It’s already the conventional view that new social media inspired and aided the Arab Spring, especially the Egyptian revolution. The reality was a little different

Young Tunisian bloggers who promoted and recorded the events of the Arab Spring now find that, without a common enemy, the social media are just a cacophony of divided and conflicting views

Nuclear power will be a key issue in France’s presidential election, following last year’s explosion at Marcoule and the Fukushima disaster in Japan. But in the world’s most nuclear-reliant country, not just safety is at stake

Financial speculators invested in food futures even before the great crash of 2008, driving up food prices to dangerous levels. This can and must be stopped