revolt “The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising” due out in paperback in English in June from Saqi (London) and University of California Press (Berkeley).
‘Politics’ stalled but austerity continues... and kills
11 April 2013, byOn April 4, Romeo Dionis 62, and his wife Annamaria Sopranzi 68, left their appartment and went down to a small room next to their garage. There they hung themselves side by side. They left notes apologising for their actions and a note with their sister’s mobile number. When Guissppe, 72, the brother of Annamaria found the bodies he went to the local port and threw himself off the wall into the sea.
Upon contact with reality at boiling point: positive chemical reaction
9 April 2013, by ,The World Social Forum (WSF) wound up its ninth centralized edition on Saturday, 30 March in the Tunisian capital with a significant quantifiable end result. More than 50,000 participants, almost one thousand activities of many kinds; an opening march on Tuesday the 26th that brought out 25,000 people and a tightly-packed closing march in solidarity with the Palestinian people. “A very positive forum” according to the analysis of Belgian historian and activist Eric Toussaint, coordinator of the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt (Comité pour l’Annulation de la Dette du Tiers Monde – CADTM) member of the FSM International piloting committee since its inception.
Even the IMF agrees… IMF declarations that do not please European leaders
1 April 2013, byIn October 2012, the IMF provided a key explanation of why the crisis was getting worse in Europe. Its Research Department wrote that every euro cut from public spending would result in a .90 to 1.70 euro decrease in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Wolfgang Münchau, who is editorialist at the Financial Times, concludes that in this time of crisis a 3% fiscal adjustment (that is a 3% decrease in public spending) would produce a 4.5% decrease in GDP. Therefore, the current policies being pursued by European governments have been leading to a drop in economic activity making it impossible to decrease the amount of public debt. As Wolfgang Münchau writes, the IMF’s motivation must not be misjudged: “The IMF does not say that austerity is too hard, too unfair, causes too much pain in the short term or hits the poor more than the rich. It says simply that austerity may not achieve its goal of reducing debt within a reasonable amount of time” [1]
Ecosocialist Network ready for action
1 April 2013, byMore than 75 members of Québec solidaire, from various regions of Quebec, held an enthusiastic meeting on Saturday, March 9 in Montréal to found the Réseau écosocialiste, the Ecosocialist Network.
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Footnotes
[1] Wolfgang Münchau, “Heed the siren voices to end fixation with austerity”, Financial Times, 15 October 2012.