Brazil's action over the detention of Glenn Greenwald's partner shows South American nations no longer toe Washington's line. ... read full story / add a comment

The following article is based on a speech given by Roger Annis to a rally in Vancouver on August 17 that was convened by Egyptian-Canadians in the city to condemn the coup d'état in Egypt of July 3 and the police and military violence that has continued in the country. The original speech has been slightly edited to include several additional points. ... read full story / add a comment

The US' paranoid political culture will not fade until we can trust our leaders and the corporations holding power. [Italiano] ... read full story / add a comment

Americans are becoming more concerned that government 'anti-terror' programmes are actually restricting civil liberties. ... read full story / add a comment

Americans are shielded from the ugly consequences of US military power by our journalists' self-censorship. ... read full story / add a comment

George Zimmerman is Peruvian white. As Haitians, we know the hard way, how the majority of Latin Americans treat the Black or the Native indigenous.
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Introduction: The Limits of a Good Idea

It started as a good idea. Rather than taking the path of the old Latin American left, in the form of the guerrilla movement, or the Stalinist party, Brazil's Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT), aided by strong union and social movements, decided to try something new. The challenge was to somehow combine the institutions of liberal democracy with popular participation by communities and movements. The answer eventually became participatory budgeting (PB). Introduced in the city of Porto Alegre in 1999, PB was a highly innovative experiment in co-management and de-centralization (Weyh, 2011). It allowed communities of diverse political stripes to democratically manage a small portion of their city's budget. Not only did this result in more and better services for poor communities, it also opened a space where people could learn new democratic skills and build new solidarities. In PB, a virtuous cycle of democracy was unleashed: the more people participated, the more people learned to participate. Add to this, a number of poverty reducing programs at the national level, such as Bolsa Familia, and you suddenly had a new path to social transformation: peaceful, gradual and pluralist. ... read full story / add a comment

The mass movements starting in June 2013 were the largest and most significant protests in Brazil in a generation, and they have shaken up the country's political system. Their explosive growth, size and extraordinary reach caught everyone – the left, the right, and the government – by surprise. This article examines these movements in light of the achievements and shortcomings of the democratic transition, in the mid-1980s, and the experience of the federal administrations led by the Workers’ Party since 2003. ... read full story / add a comment

PORT-AU-PRINCE—In Haiti, people wear T-shirts bearing unlikely English messages: "We're the 2% who don't care," says one; a respectable-looking grandmother dons a T-shirt emblazoned with "Crack is Whack!"; a little boy without shoes or pants wears a "Save Darfur" T-shirt; while training an illegal militia, a tough former army lieutenant sports a "Varsity Cheerleader" T-shirt. ... read full story / add a comment

JULY/AUGUST 2013 RESISTANCE #153 is out. UPRISING! Coming to a democracy near you (Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, Slovenia), Whistle Blowers, Industrial Roundup (Bridgewater postal strike, Runcorn building workers wildcat, Teachers’ Strike, Brighton refuse-worker update), Spanish Anarchist Prisoner Support, Clément Méric anti-fascist demo. ... read full story / add a comment

From Egypt to Brazil, street action is driving change, but organisation is essential if it's not to be hijacked or disarmed. ... read full story / add a comment

The near equality in strength of the two camps contending for power in Egypt led the army to stage a Bonapartist coup. It is not only the recent episode of unprecedented crowds in the millions coming out on 30 June that has made the army move. This struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood government of now deposed President Mohamed Morsi, on the one hand, and the opposition, represented by the National Salvation Front, and more recently by the Tamerod (Rebel) movement, on the other, has been going on since last November. This is, in fact, the third wave of spectacular demonstrations by the opposition within a cycle of the Egyptian revolution that has been going on since November. ... read full story / add a comment

The recent wave of resistance that spread from a park in one of the historic neighbourhoods of Istanbul, Turkey has evoked significant enthusiasm in and support from various movements and segments of populations in several countries. Although the park, which had been a temporary home for thousands of protestors for a couple of weeks, was forcibly and violently evacuated by the police on June 16th, the resistance continues in different forms and in numerous locations, both within and outside of Turkey. This unexpected and abrupt rebellion in a country, which has been presented for a decade by many international organizations and governments as a role model for the rest of the Middle East with its commitment to market reforms and ‘democratization,’ was a response to a number of factors and ongoing processes. If the most predominant of these were the increasingly authoritarian nature of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) rule, the others were the further neoliberalization of Turkish society, the utter failure of an increasingly interventionist Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East, and a complete disregard for and destruction of the environment in the service of capital across the country. ... read full story / add a comment

The vast majority of people own no significant amount of stocks or other financial assets. Every single person breathes air. Every single person depends on the growing of food and the nutrition it provides to stay alive. We can't live underwater. From these axioms, we should be able to divine a sense of what rational societal priorities reflect and emphasize. ... read full story / add a comment

From Taksim to Tahrir, from Bulgaria to Brazil, we fight the same struggle against oppressive state structures that benefit only a tiny wealthy elite. [Italiano] ... read full story / add a comment

The Gezi Park protests in Istanbul have been the center of attention not only in Turkey but the whole world during the last few weeks. This has been a revolt unforeseeable in terms of its scale, influence, the intensity of its resentment, and the courage, determination, and self-confidence of masses of people, many with no previous political affiliation and experience. It is commonplace to say now that the movement was not just about the initial problem: the destruction of a ‘couple of trees’ to make space for a shopping mall or a kitsch Ottoman style caserne. It was essentially about demanding basic human rights or the right to demand rights.

But what were the big issues? Which developments led to these riots? Why does Taksim Square matter so much to Turkish people? And will this revolt be a factor to cease Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's unfinished transformation?

Hamilton University Professor of Economics Erol Balkan and Sabanci University Professor of Sociology Ahmet Öncü, have been asking these questions for years. In the book they are working on with Hamilton University Professor of Economics Nesecan Balkan, entitled The Neoliberal Landscape and the Rise of Islamic Capital, they analyze the economic and social context that gave rise to this movement. According to Balkan and Öncü, the Gezi Park protests will have to develop into a new, stronger and more inclusive movement in the future. They were interviewed by Kvanç Özvardar, a Turkish journalist writing regularly for Ekonomist weekly and on politics as a freelance reporter. ... read full story / add a comment

São Paulo has some of the worst traffic in the world. Workers' daily commutes can be over two hours – one way – without ever leaving the city. Rain or traffic accidents can easily increase a commute to over four hours. Streets become so congested during peak hours of traffic that the local news stations report on the length of kilometers of stopped cars and trucks on the highways entering the city. There are permanent signs mounted beside these highways with lights that can be turned on and off indicating that “traffic is stopped in front.” São Paulo has the highest per capita density of private helicopters in the world. Those with serious money in this extremely rich and unequal city choose the option to literally fly over the traffic jams.
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While the world has been watching Turkey, another country is experiencing revolt. That country is Brazil. Just like Turkey, it is relatively succesful, economically speaking. Just like Turkey, the results of economic growth are divided very unequally. Just like in Turkey, a relatively small provocation is setting off a much biggen chain reaction. Unlike in Turkey, that provocation is a direct attack on living standards. But the anger exploding goes much deeper than that.
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At 11 AM EST today, The Guardian hosted a live question and answer session with the Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former National Security Administrator contractor.

The transcript follows:
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Following the arrest and detention this morning (Wednesday) of a member of the socialist republican party, éirígí, while putting up anti-G8 posters on Belfast’s Falls Road, the PSNI also seized similar posters from other members of the party in the Glen Road area of the city. ... read full story / add a comment