Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
According to its high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, the EU at present has 5,000 troops stationed around the world under its aegis.¹ Most of its operations are based in Africa (as shown in part 1 of this article). However, the EU’s most significant operation on the European continent […]
T. S. Elliott wrote in “Choruses from ‘The Rock’” (1934): Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? We have all the knowledge and information about climate change, but the capitalist system doesn’t allow us to act with wisdom. As a […]
The article by Alan Farrell in the March issue under the heading “In defence of China” raises some extremely important questions but offers answers that are unsustainable. The writer asks three questions to represent the concerns expressed by many people, and proceeds to answer them. But the questions themselves are […]
Rich countries, with 14 per cent of the world’s population, have secured 53 per cent of the “Western” covid vaccines. Meanwhile you have to search hard for information on vaccines being produced or tested in other countries, including Russia and Cuba. Almost all the Pfizer-Biontech vaccines will go to rich […]
The 8th of March each year has continued to grow in popularity around the world as a day on which to recognise and celebrate women in general. But this increase in popularity stems from a growing disconnection from the radical socialist roots of what was once widely known as International […]
Suomenlinna is a beautiful little island off the coast of Helsinki. A regular boat service (part of the public transport system) ferries residents, navy cadets and tourists alike to the island in about fifteen minutes. On the trip across, depending on the time of year, you can be met by […]
The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B’Tselem, has judged Israel to be an apartheid state, bent on perpetuating the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians. “Israel is not a democracy that has a temporary occupation attached to it,” said the body’s executive director, Hagai El-Ad. “It […]
This article seeks to explore the apparent contradictions inherent in China today and to examine the evidence relating to criticisms made of the Chinese state by some figures and organisations on the left. Broadly speaking, critiques of China from the left fall under three categories: that the rapid growth and […]
For almost a decade Facebook has aggressively set out to acquire a monopoly in the field of social media communications. Popular communications platforms, such as Instagram and Whatsapp, which rivalled Facebook’s own services, were acquired (in 2012 and 2014, respectively), to consolidate the market and ultimately to profit from a captive audience locked behind “walled gardens” and unable to communicate between platforms.
Scientists and environmentalists, decades ago, warned the world of an impending global pandemic. Those in the corridors of power who paid no heed to it are now surprised and shocked. Scientists have raised the alarm over a greater catastrophe endangering our very survival on this
Modern on-line social media are a continuing large-scale social experiment as much as we want to consider them a norm of modern life.
Whenever the debate on the effects, drawbacks or benefits of on-line social media arises, there is always an attempt to draw analogies with physical social spaces, such as a public square or perhaps the village community centre.
President Joe Biden’s choice of Samantha Power as head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) got the Irish media into a flurry of excitement.
On 25 January, 2021, the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam will open in Hanoi. The Congress takes place in the context of Vietnam’s successes against Covid-19 where Vietnam has seen less than 1.5 thousand cases and 35 deaths (at the time of writing) in a country […]
THE GOVERNMENT has been forced to postpone a controversial vote on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)—a free-trade agreement between the European Union and Canada—until the new year.
It had hoped to have it ratified by the Dáil after a 55-minute debate on 15 December. The vote had already been postponed from October to give the Green Party leader, Eamon Ryan, time to convince his members to support the treaty, which he has failed to do. A number of senior members still have concerns, and they are attempting to
In 2008 the inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, expressed his view that “the root problem with conventional currencies is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.”¹ This is an old right-wing libertarian talking-point: “When the state spends money to achieve social aims, it devalues money in general, which is an attack on people with lots of money.”
As 2020 comes to an end—a year that many would like to forget— sadly, despite the world pandemic, there is no good will from global capitalism towards the peoples of the global south in their battle against covid-19.
The TRIPS Council of the World Trade Organization, which deals with intellectual property rights, debated a proposal tabled by India and South Africa, supported by Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and Kenya,