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2015
Articles
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3 August 2015, by Theodoros Karyotis
Syriza Surrenders: Time For Renewed Popular Resistance
Now that Syriza has caved in to the creditors, the need for grassroots mobilization is more urgent than ever. A new cycle of struggles is ahead of us. For two weeks now, political time has (...) -
1 July 2015, by Yiannis Bournous
“After Five Years of Devastation I Am Finally Bringing A Message of Solidarity And Hope From Greece”
Yiannis Bournous, member of the Political Secretariat of Syriza was invited by Alternatives to its Festival of Solidarity held in Montreal on June 13, 2015. This speech has been transcribed by (...) -
1 July 2015, by Pablo Bustinduy Amador
“In our Blood, We Have in The Memory of the Spanish Fighters, Who Were The First To Fight Fascism In Europe”
Pablo Bustinduy Amador, International Representative of Podemos, Spain was invited by Alternatives to its Festival of Solidarity held in Montreal on June 13, 2015. This speech has been (...) -
1 July 2015, by Caren Lay
“Syriza’s Election Success Has Done Much To Stimulate Debate About The Future Of Europe”
Caren Lay, member of the Parliament from Die Linke, Germany was invited by Alternatives to its Festival of Solidarity held in Montreal on June 13, 2015. This speech has been transcribed by (...) -
1 July 2015, by Sean Sweeney
How Climate Change Connects to Austerity
Sean Sweeney from Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, USA was invited by Alternatives to its Festival of Solidarity held in Montreal on June 13, 2015. This speech has been transcribed by Sophia (...) -
1 July 2015, by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois
With Referendum on Austerity, Greece Goes all-in on Democracy
Within Syriza, tensions were reaching a fever pitch. The left wing of the party was growing impatient, and party activists openly confessed their disappointment with the government. Some went so (...) -
1 July 2015, by Sophia Reuss and Jennifer Geleff
Three Minutes To Midnight: Natural Catastrophes in the Anthropocene
The 2015 Doomsday Clock reads 3 Minutes to Midnight. Since 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has annually evaluated nuclear threats, climate change, biosecurity and other potential (...) -
1 July 2015, by Messaoud Romdhani
Tunisia: Old Cultural Reflexes and Nascent Democracy
After January 14th, 2011, the most uncommon dreams of a beleaguered small country were permitted, and some of them have already come true: for the first time there have been the formation of (...) -
1 July 2015, by Sukumar Muralidharan
Globalisation of Misery
One in every 122 people on the planet today is displaced, a result of the iniquities of development the world over World Refugee Day on June 20 may have been just one of those rituals (...) -
1 June 2015, by Sophia Reuss
Lampedusa: European Border Delocalization in the Mediterranean
Lampedusa, a rocky, 20-square kilometre Italian island in the Mediterranean, lies 113 kilometres east of Tunisia and 300 kilometers north of Libya. In the past two decades, Lampedusa, an (...) -
1 June 2015, by Sophie Smith and Jennifer Geleff
Forced Migration and Ethnic Cleansing: Rohingya Adrift in Southeast Asia
The Rohingya people are an oppressed Muslim minority group in Buddhist-majority Myanmar that have faced an enduring history of ethnic discrimination and systemic poverty. In Myanmar, the (...) -
1 June 2015, by Kyle Jacques
Mediterranean Militarization: A New Obstacle for Europe’s Migrants
Last April over 800 people drowned to death in the Mediterranean Sea after a ship packed full of migrants capsized on its way from Libya to Italy. The victims of this tragedy were much like the (...) -
1 June 2015, by Interview
The Roots of Inequality for Ethiopian Israelis
Jessica Desvarieux, Producer, TRNN interviews Lia Tarachansky Jessica Desvarieux: So Lia, when the protests and the destruction of property took place in Baltimore last week, we covered it (...) -
1 June 2015, by Frans Jansson
A Kurdish Perspective on the Turkish Elections
ISTANBUL – Hopes and fears are plentiful in Kurdish and left-wing politics in Turkey ahead of the elections on Sunday. The Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), the left-wing party focused on the (...) -
1 June 2015, by Messaoud Romdhani
Saving What’s Left of the Arab Spring
When Tunisia succeeded in holding its second legislative and presidential elections by the end of 2014, the “Washington Post” wrote: “Remember the Arab Spring? Here’s what’s left,” (November 23, (...) -
1 June 2015, by Dylan Boyko
Uncovering Something Less Ignorant
I first heard of the vague concept of the Armenian Genocide when I was 13 reading a Kurt Vonnegut novel called Bluebeard. The book was first published in 1987, and only the narrator’s distant (...) -
1 June 2015, by Alternatives
Fighting Austerity
You are kindly invited to join us at this third edition of The Festival of Solidarity to be held in Montreal, on June 13th, at Salle Agora- Coeur des sciences de l’UQAM, from 9:30am to 5:30pm. (...) -
4 May 2015, by Sophia Reuss
Colonialism and Austerity: The Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada
The situation of missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada, Harper’s failure to respond to demands for a national inquiry into the issue, and intensifying federal and provincial austerity (...) -
4 May 2015, by James Patrick Cannon
Austerity on Trial? Much at stake for Spain in Electoral Year
2015 is a critical year for Spain’s progressive forces. The country is set to hold municipal and regional elections in May, and national elections by the end of the year, democratic exercises (...) -
4 May 2015, by Dylan Boyko
The Grexit Looms
The unfortunately named grexit looms unenviably. Caught between the hardline dictates of the IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and the uncertain plans of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and (...) -
4 May 2015, by Kyle Jacques
Case of Bolivia Offers Alternative Perspective on the Supposed Necessity of Fiscal Austerity
The Quebec Liberals and their supporters in the news media are relying on familiar and simplistic arguments regarding the need for fiscal austerity in the province. While budget cuts will harm (...) -
4 May 2015, by Noah Sutton and Sophia Reuss
Austerity and Environment: Interview
Roger Rashi is a long-time social and political activist from Montreal. He now works as Campaigns Coordinator for Alternatives. Since the fall of 2011, Roger was involved in organizing the (...) -
4 May 2015, by Aditya Adhikari
Watching A City Crumble
A first person account of the earthquake and its aftershocks in Kathmandu. In the evening of April 25, the day that the 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, I stood on the roof of my house (...) -
4 May 2015, by Asad Zaidi
Radical Storyteller
Six years ago, at the Summit of the Americas, Hugo Chavez, sprung a surprise on the unsuspecting Barack Obama by presenting him, with great fanfare, a copy of the original Spanish edition of (...) -
4 April 2015
People United Will Never Be Defeated!
Declaration of the Social Movements Assembly World Social Forum 2015 Tunisia, 27 March 2015 The Social Movements Assembly of the WSF 2015, Tunisia is the place where we come together through (...) -
4 April 2015, by Gideon Levy
Netanyahu Deserves the Israeli People, and They Deserve Him
The first conclusion that arose just minutes after the announcement of the exit polls was particularly discouraging: The nation must be replaced. Not another election for the country’s (...) -
4 April 2015, by Paul Weinberg
Bill C-51 Wants You to Stop Protesting in Support of Palestinians
One of the less discussed questions of the Harper government’s anti-terror bill, Bill C-51, is whether Palestinian rights advocates and advocates of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) will (...) -
4 April 2015, by Pablo Solón
Behind the Climate Negotiating Text for COP21
The future lies in the past. What has happened will determine what will come. The idea that we can change everything and save the world at the last minute is exciting in movies but it does not (...) -
4 April 2015, by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois
Quebec Police Don’t Live in a Bubble
When faced with a symbolically criminalized enemy, there’s only one possible attitude: all-out war. Last Thursday, a police officer from the Service de police de la ville de Québec (SPVQ) (...) -
4 April 2015, by Spyros Lapatsioras, John Milios and Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos
Syriza’s Only Choice: A Radical Step Forward
“One must know how to employ the kairos [right or opportune moment] of one’s forces at the right moment. It is easy to only lose a little, if one always keeps foremost in the mind the idea that (...) -
4 April 2015, by Sukumar Muralidharan
Free Speech, Fearless Listening and Fair Trial
How India’s Daughter has led to a bonfire of free speech Free speech is not about raging at the walls of an empty room. It also involves the right to be heard. And this freedom could (...) -
4 April 2015, by Immanuel Wallerstein
Antisystemic Movements and the Future of Capitalism
Unrevised version of talk at 39th Annual Meeting of the Political Economy of the World-System Conference, Berlin, Mar. 2015. The antisystemic movements now find themselves in the midst of a (...) -
4 April 2015, by SACW
Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Dr. Daya Varma, life-long communist, scientist, activist, dreamer, pharmacologist, professor emeritus at McGill University, Montreal, passed away on 22 March 2015 in St. John’s, Newfoundland, (...) -
1 March 2015, by Praful Bidwai
India: From a Politics of Hatred to a Politics of Hope
The Aam Aadmi Party has accomplished a stupendous political feat in India’s capital. Not only has it won more than half the total vote and 95 percent of all seats, which even the luckiest of (...) -
1 March 2015, by Stefan Christoff
A Surveillance Society And Criminalize Dissent
New ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation proposed by the Conservative government, Bill C-51, is a clear assault on free expression, creating an extensive legal framework for state authorities to (...) -
1 March 2015, by Messaoud Romdhani
Terrorism on Both Sides of the Mediterranean
On 6 February 2013, the Tunisian leftist leader Chokri Belaid was shot dead. Belaid had been very critical of the Islamist-led troika government and of violence perpetrated by radical Islamists. (...) -
1 March 2015, by Prashant Bhushan
Terrorizing Teesta Setalvad
The case of Teesta Setalvad is a chilling example of what can still happen to even highly acclaimed and well connected persons in this country if they take on those in authority The case of (...) -
1 March 2015, by Palestinian BDS National Committee
Disinformation and Repression Against BDS
Palestinian Civil Society Condemns Canadian Government Disinformation and Repression Against Boycott Movement The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition of (...) -
1 March 2015, by Uri Avnery
The Casino Republic
Who is the ruler of Israel? Prime Minister Biyamin Netayahu, of course. WRONG. The real ruler of Israel is one Sheldon Adelson, 81, American Jew, Casino king, who was rated as the (...) -
1 March 2015, by Grist staff
Why Low Oil Prices Could be a Great Thing
May Boeve, executive director of 350.org, recently interviewed Naomi Klein, activist and author of the book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (and a 350 board member), as part (...) -
1 March 2015, by Costas Douzinas
Syriza: The Greek Spring
The 2015 Greek elections mark the beginning of the end of a cycle that started in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are now witnessing the end of the "end of history" metanarrative. (...) -
1 March 2015, by Bernard Dreano
Letter from Paris
My friends and I, either in the past or more recently, all had some kind of personal and/or activist link with people among the victims... Dear Friends, As you know the terrorists killed (...) -
1 February 2015, by Stathis Kouvelakis
After Syriza’s Victory, Confrontation or Capitulation
Syriza’s Stathis Kouvelakis on why his party fell short of an absolute majority and the choices that lie ahead. Syriza’s electoral triumph has brought hope to the European radical left and (...) -
1 February 2015, by Glenn Greenwald
Free Speech for Western Apologists Only
France Arrests a Comedian For His Facebook Comments, Showing the Sham of the West’s “Free Speech” Celebration Forty-eight hours after hosting a massive march under the banner of free (...) -
1 February 2015, by Praful Bidwai
Did Obama Legitimize Extremist Violence With His Visit to India?
The president roped once-non-aligned India into a strategic alliance, but only by bolstering the Modi government, with its religious intolerance and pro-corporate policies. The combination (...) -
1 February 2015, by Mustafa Caglayan
Norman Finkelstein: Charlie Hebdo is Sadism, not Satire
World renowned political science professor says he has ’no sympathy’ for staff at Charlie Hebdo In Nazi Germany, there was an anti-Semitic weekly newspaper called Der Stürmer. Run by (...) -
1 February 2015, by Sukumar Muralidharan
Hand in Hand?
India inhabits a complex part of the geopolitical map, where the simple binaries of us and them break down, especially for the US The sole Indian journalist called on to address a question (...) -
1 February 2015, by Messaoud Romdhani
Women’s Empowerment: The Text and the Practice
Tunisia could pride itself on drafting the most advanced code of personal status in the region, forbidding polygamy, legalizing divorce, establishing equality between partners in the choice of (...) -
1 February 2015, by Medea Benjamin
Flogging for Blogging?
The U.S. government continues to turn a blind eye to the medieval forms of torture meted out by its Saudi allies. On January 9, two days after the massive Paris march condemning the brutal (...) -
1 February 2015, by Harsh Kapoor
Long Live Charlie Hebdo!
A letter to the left leaning in wake of Charlie Hebdo shootings of January 2015 The January 2015 terror attack on the Paris satirical weekly and its gross misinterpretation by people of Left (...) -
1 February 2015, by Leo Panitch
The Greek Election
As we enter the eighth year of the long-lingering global economic crisis, it is sobering indeed that it is only in Greece that a political party putting forward a clear, radical democratic (...) -
1 January 2015, by Pervez Hoodbhoy
It Wasn’t The Final Atrocity
THE gut-wrenching massacre in Peshawar’s Army Public School has left Pakistan aghast and sickened. All political leaders have called for unity against terrorism. But this is no watershed event (...) -
1 January 2015, by Ajmal Kamal
Litfests and Bookfairs – Two Worlds?
If you have attended this year the two events that mark the pinnacle of Karachi’s book culture – the Karachi Literature Festival and the Karachi International Book Fair – you may have noticed (...) -
1 January 2015, by Editorial, Economic and Political Weekly
Staring Down a Precipice
Lima ignored the urgent need to address climate change. They came, they talked, and they almost failed. That seems to be the trajectory of most of the conferences on climate change held (...) -
1 January 2015, by John Feffer
Carrots for Cuba, Sticks for North Korea
As one cold war thaws, another refreezes. Cuba and North Korea share a great deal in common. They are both led by dynastic rulers. They retain their nominal affiliation to revolutionary (...) -
1 January 2015, by Messaoud Romdhani
Tunisia: The Third Option For The Region
Despite hardships and breaches that marred the electoral campaign depriving scores of citizens, mainly outside the country, from their right to vote, the electoral process was rather successful. (...)