IV337 - January/February 2002

• The EU and America’s war

  9 February 2002, by François Vercammen

  The attack on the United States by a terrorist organization of Islamic fundamentalist origin has shaken the planet: nowhere is safe any more, not even the USA. After all the other wildcat privatisations, states have now lost their monopoly control over the most destructive and pernicious weapons.

• The ‘war on terror’ - a first balance sheet

  9 February 2002, by Phil Hearse

  Now, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, since September 11 the US project has an overarching ideology, the ’war against terrorism’. It represents an ambitious new stage, an attempt to politically wipe out the opposition to the US corporations.

• 2001, or the Great Cyclical Dowturn

  9 February 2002, by Michel Husson

  An analysis of the world economic situation is of course complicated by the attacks of last September 11. The discussion is necessarily a dual one: on the nature of the current downturn, and on the major features of the new period that opened in the wake of the 9-11 events.

• Is war imminent?

  9 February 2002, by Farooq Tariq

  The Bush war on terrorism has taken a new turn. It is possible that a real war could erupt between the two nuclear powers, Pakistan and India. It is not going to be one way traffic as was the case of the American Afghanistan war.

• Vajpayee Must Respond Positively to Musharraf’s Offer

  9 February 2002, by Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)

  IN his televised address yesterday, President Musharraf has come out strongly against religious fundamentalism and terrorist violence. He has banned Pak-based militant organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad and has once again called for a negotiated political settlement of the Kashmir problem. We call upon the Vajpayee government to make a positive response and engage Pakistan in a serious and comprehensive dialogue.

• Power changes hands - not for the better

  9 February 2002, by V Thirunavakkarasu

  On December 5, 2001 elections to Sri Lanka’s 12th Parliament concluded - marred by unprecedented violence that tragically claimed the lives of at least 50. The single worst incident was on the day of the election itself, when ten Muslim youth accompanying ballot boxes to the counting station were pursued and then gunned down by hirelings of a senior Cabinet Minister.

• A strategic discussion

  9 February 2002, by Claudio Katz

  The advances made by the left in the Argentine elections of October 14, 2001, along with new successes in the university elections and the achievement of the first united demonstration with a common programme for the crisis, confirms that the left, in the form of a coalition, may be beginning to take shape as an alternative focus in the current crisis.

• A popular rebellion

  9 February 2002, by Eduardo Lucita

  Thirty dead, more than 439 injured, 3273 arrested, has been the price of a popular rebellion by the traditionally unrecognised, ordinary people of Argentina. For the first time in our history, a democratically elected government was toppled, not by a military coup d’etat but by the direct action of the working and popular masses.

• Obscure clarity

  9 February 2002, by Catherine Samary

  THE European Union’s intergovernmental summit, held in the Brussels suburb of Laeken on December 14-15, 2001 did not mince its words. The "democratic deficit" has been replaced by the "democratic challenge".

• The other Europe on the march

  9 February 2002, by Dominique Mezzi, Emile Jourdin, Robert Mirabel

  WITH more than 120,000 demonstrators over three days the Laeken counter-summit showed the continuing strength of opposition to neo-liberalism and capitalist globalisation.

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