These remarks were published on VersoBooks blog on 23 January 2015. “I’ll make a few brief remarks on the Greek election campaign and the situation within Syriza, in order to help overcome the frustration of not being there. I reckon these comments are relatively ‘cool-headed’ – distance allows for that, at least.”
Mufti seriously risks losing the plot in Kashmir
24 January 2015, byThe Bharatiya Janata Party’s national leadership has officially confirmed that it’s in talks with the People’s Democratic Party to form a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir. This proposal is endorsed by a surprisingly large number of self-avowed well-wishers of the Kashmiri people, as well as cynical “realists” who believe that such a coalition of extremes, between India’s unitarian-nationalists and the Kashmir Valley’s “soft-separatists”, is J&K’s best chance of having a stable government which paves the way for its greater integration into India. The parties’ respective core-bases, Jammu and the Valley, they argue, “complement” each other. Arithmetically too, the two — with respectively 25 and 28 seats — would command a solid majority in the 87-seat Assembly.
Charlie Hebdo – And now what? The events, their impact and the issues at play.
23 January 2015, by ,“So you no longer want to hear about classes and their struggles? You’ll get the plebs and disjointed multitudes. You no longer want peoples? You’ll get packs and tribes. You no longer want parties? You’ll get the despotism of public opinion!”
Daniel Bensaïd, Éloge de la politique profane (In praise of lay politics)
Terror, cartoons and Islamophobia
23 January 2015, byThis is a statement from Socialist Resistance on the murders in France.
EU follows the German example
22 January 2015, byBetween 2003 and 2005, Gerhard Schröder’s socialist government gave German employers a helping hand in imposing sacrifices on the workers.
Africa: plummeting commodity prices might lead to a new debt crisis
20 January 2015, byIn 2014, Rwanda and Ethiopia, two of the world’s poorest countries, sold public debt bonds on the financial markets of the most industrialized countries. While still unstable after civil wars and with debt payments suspended hardly three years ago, the Ivory Coast also managed to find private lenders willing to buy those securities. This was unprecedented in the last 30 years. Kenya and Zambia also issued debt securities.
"The people is placing its hopes on the vote for Syriza, but the relationship of forces has not changed"
19 January 2015This interview was conducted on January 7 by Tassos Anastassiadis and Andreas Sartzekis, members of the leadership of the OKDE, Greek section of the Fourth International. It was first published in the January 8 issue of the weekly L’Anticapitaliste, newspaper of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) in France.
What if SYRIZA took the EU at its word and audited Greek debt?
19 January 2015, bySince the announcement that elections will be held in Greece on 25 January 2015, the prospect that they be won by SYRIZA has been presented as a menace to international public opinion and in particular, as a threat to the Eurozone. Yet those who are sounding the alarm are fully aware that SYRIZA has announced that it has no intention of suspending debt repayments once elected, and wishes to remain in the Eurozone. On the other hand SYRIZA is committed to putting an end to the unjust and antisocial measures implemented by previous governments and the Troika.
“We’re facing an important crossroads”
18 January 2015, byGilbert Achcar, interviewed by correspondents.org/eg, says Egypt is at an historical and highly important crossroads in the development of the long-term revolutionary process— stressing the urgency in building leadership and formulating strategies appropriate for change. Imminent catastrophe can be avoided, he advises, by deploying organized political forces pursuing a strategy that seeks to construct a third, revolutionary phase, equally removed from the old regime and religious radicalism.