International

Helena Sheehan is professor emerita at Dublin City University and long time left activist. This is a sequel to To the crucible: An Irish Engagement with the Greek Crisis and the Greek Left published on the 21st of January, 2013. The Dominant Narrative “Things have gone very quiet in Greece, haven’t they?” So many people said […] Read more »

Pedro Filipe Soares is a Left Bloc MP in the Portuguese parliament. Soares attend the first congress of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) from July 10-14. Syriza, a coalition of left groups, decided to become a new political party after it came close to winning elections on an anti-austerity platform last year. The […] Read more »

The next European elections will he held in 2014. Will McMahon argues that British socialists should stand for a socialist Europe, but that this cannot be achieved within the context of the current European Union. Prior to the 1992 General Election the ostensibly socialist journal New Left Review No 191 carried an article ‘The Ruins […] Read more »

In this guest post João Camargo, an Anti-Troika activist and book author based in Lisbon, writes about turbulent times inside the ruling PSD-CDS coalition and how the government narrowly saved itself from ultimate collapse last week. He argues that further resistance to the Troika of ECB, EU and IMF can deliver the final blow to […] Read more »

Sophie Katz extends her first commentary on the situation in Egypt. It is often a mistake to comment from afar but the British media is so appalling and the Internet so full of trash it is difficult to hear genuine voices from the Egyptian left in these crucial hours. But great events pile on great […] Read more »

It is a puzzle for everybody with revolutionary and democratic instincts what to think about the Egyptian coup, says Sophie Katz. It is not of course a problem for Britain’s popular ‘commentariat’ who trumpet their clichés about everybody else’s failure to abide by the rule of law and shamefully remind their readers of the horrors […] Read more »

One of the biggest components of opposition to the austerity measures in Spain has centred around housing, with the harsh mortgage laws having led to mass evictions. In a recent development in Andalucia, Izquierda Unida has been instrumental in passing a law to expropriate repossessed houses from the banks. Elsewhere Spanish workers are refusing to […] Read more »

  The recent decision of the Greek Prime Minister, Samaras, to close down the public television and radio stations, caused a large mobilization and resulted in a crisis of the governmental coalition, reports Stavros Panagiotidis. Since that day, representatives of trade unions, student unions, workers federations, party leaders, MPs, members of all left parties and […] Read more »

  A historical uprising has resulted in new practices, potentially very fruitful for closer investigation for progressives in both Europe and the Middle East, says Ekim Caglar.  Finally the progressives had the power to shake the hegemony and be in the centre of Turkish politics for a while. It all started with the trees in […] Read more »

Orsan Senalp reports on the massive June Days mobilisation in Turkey and highlights the music produced in solidarity with the protests, including some of the best known musical and video products of the June Days. Last Saturday (22 June) hundreds of  thousands gathered in Taksim Square to commemorate martyred comrades of the resistance. However while people […] Read more »