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| Portugal
Presidential Elections : Victory for the media-austerity candidateThis week’s presidential election represented a defeat for the left, as Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, TV’s most known commentator for the past ten years in the country, was elected President of the Republic. The Socialist Party, divided in two faction candidates (pro-left and pro-right, that is, for and against the current Socialist Party Government, supported in Parliament by the left), summed up 27,8%. The Communist Party’s backed candidate didn’t go beyond 3,95%, while the Left Bloc’s backed candidate, the MEP Marisa Matias, achieved a 10,1% result, coming up third and achieving it best presidential result ever. -> read article... |
| Kurdistan / Syria
Rojava, the PYD and Kurdish self-determinationThe Kurds of Syria, that is of West Kurdistan (Rojava), have now become key actors in the combined process of counter-revolution, civil war and self-determination underway in Syria. The PYD (Democratic Union Party) had already taken de facto control in the enclaves of Kobané first, then of Afrin and Jazira, following the withdrawal of the Assad regime’s forces in July 2012, and it had declared autonomy in this region in January 2014 as a reaction to not being invited to the second Geneva conference. But it was mainly with the siege of Kobané by Islamic State and the audacious resistance of the Popular Protection Units (YPG), and particularly the women fighting in the ranks of the YPJ, that the forces linked to the PYD and the experience of self-determination in Rojava obtained legitimacy and enjoyed support at the international level. -> read article... |
| Sexual politics
Homegrown Feminism in the CaribbeanFor women who built revolutions with their dreams and sewing machines. “Feminism cannot be monolithic in its issues, goals and strategies, since it constitutes the political expression of the concerns and interests of women from different regions, classes, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds. While gender subordination has universal elements, feminism cannot be based on a rigid concept of universality that negates the wide variation of women’s experience. There is and must be a diversity of feminisms, responsive to the different needs and concerns of different women, and define by them for themselves.” — DAWN, 1987 -> read article... |