Rodrigo Duterte’s election as president of the Philippines made global news. It’s not hard to see why. Described as an “outsider” and a “maverick,” Duterte is a charismatic enigma.
A battered austerity regime returns to power in Dublin
3 June 2016, byOn Friday 6th May Enda Kenny was appointed Taoiseach and the government of the 32nd Irish Dail established. Kenny and his Fine Gael party had been roundly trounced in the polls and his Labour party coalition partners decimated. Now, after 70 days of horse-trading, he had been returned to power. The austerity programme of Irish capital, enforced on behalf of the Troika, although slightly dented, remains in place.
After the demonstration against Michel-De Wever: now we must continue
3 June 2016, byOnce again, the incredible strength and tenacity of the Belgian workers’ movement has been demonstrated, as has the extent to which tens of thousands of active militants remain, through hell and high water, attached in all circumstances to their unions as central pillars of social resistance. Once again, we have seen how they refuse to bow before the steamroller of austerity of the right and continue against all odds to take actions of social resistance.
What does the success of People before Profit candidates mean?
2 June 2016, byThe election of two Socialist Workers Party/People Before Profit candidates to the Stormont Assembly on May 5 at the end of a lacklustre election campaign in the North of Ireland was like a lightning flash, providing excitement and colour.
A tale of two South Africas
2 June 2016, byTwenty two years after the fall of apartheid, and South Africa is still a country highly polarized between the haves and have-nots. I could cite the Gini coefficient, which measures inequality between rich and poor, which tells us that South Africa is in a hot contest with Brazil and China for the title of most unequal society in the world. I could point to the fact that the top South African bosses commonly earn 200 times the average wage of their employees. But a better way to understand the sheer barbarism that is capitalism in South Africa is to take a simple 45-minute drive from Johannesburg to the township of Tembisa, which I did on May Day.
“Only a government led by Unidas Podemos can fight the Troika”
1 June 2016, byMiguel Urbán (Madrid, 1980) received El Diario in the MEP’s office he has opened in Madrid a few hours before the final outcome of the presidential elections in Austria was announced. Urbán analysed the reasons that led Hofer’s FPÖ party to win around 50% of the vote in the heart of Europe. Speaking about the general elections of June 26, he believes that the union of Podemos and IU (which he calls “Unidas Podemos”), with other parties and with the Catalan, Galician and Valencian confluences, is the only alternative to the “single ballot” of the PP, PSOE and Ciudadanos”. Also he spoke on the future of Podemos after the elections.
Stability proves illusive in the North of Ireland
1 June 2016, byThe elections to the Stormont Assembly in the North of Ireland on May 5 passed in silence, with the main issue persuading people to vote. The reason for the apathy was that voting makes very little difference. There is only one possible administration and the programme for government had been agreed in advance and accepted by both the political parties and civic society. Not only were the main elements of the administration’s programme not discussed, they were rarely referred to. This was a cause of great satisfaction for British secretary of state Theresa Villiers, who claimed that the acceptance of the mixture of austerity and sectarianism contained in the Fresh Start accord meant a new era of stability in the statelet.