IV526 - November 2018

Demonstrations on successive weekends in London last month shone a spotlight on major political rifts — in the major parties and in the political left.

The much-discussed results of the U.S. midterm elections represent, in this writer’s view, a “rebalancing” rather than something “transformative.” It is of course significant that the far-right Republican stranglehold on both houses of Congress as well as the presidency will be broken by the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. But after the sound and fury, it’s also important to understand some sharp limitations.
Election results handwritten on a chalkboard

A combination of real estate capitalism and climate change unleashed the murderous fires in California.

Today Brazil is living through one of the saddest moments of its history. The history of the Brazilian people is essentially a history of resistance, since the European colonial invasion it has been very difficult to survive in our land. But we fight and resist.

Thousands of migrants from Central America have made politically and socially visible the structural violence and systematic violation of their human rights that they experience on a daily basis, without governments attending to the causes or the basic necessities of survival, through their organisation into caravans. These are some of the reasons that forced them to flee their countries, with only what they carry on their backs and suffering the hardships of a long journey towards an uncertain destination. They flee from capitalist criminal, institutional, state and patriarchal violence. They advance in defiance of the threats of the police and military who guard the different borders, as if at war with the wretched of the earth.

Podemos’s backing for Spain’s Socialist cabinet risks making it a prop to the institutions it once rebelled against. Yet it has also imposed its own stamp on the government’s agenda.

The President has removed Ranil Wickramasinghe and appointed former President Mahinda Rajapakse as the new Prime Minister. Executive Presidents abusing their powers in violation of democratic norms is not new to our political history and this unacceptable act follows in that line. It has also created a crisis in the elite political sphere which can be resolved by either party commanding the confidence of the Parliament.

Central American migrants, both desperate and courageous, have thrust themselves into the center of Mexican and U.S. politics with their demand for refuge and asylum. As the head of the NGO Pueblos Sin Fronteras told a reporter, “This isn’t just a caravan, it’s an exodus created by hunger and death.”

S’bu Zikode leads a shack dwellers’ movement and says city officials crack down on those who highlight a housing crisis.

Rising levels of poverty and inequality are adding to the frustrations of young people in the country, most of whom want to be identified as Hong Kongers, rather than Chinese or even Hong Konger in China.
Amid Growing Clampdown on Dissent and Free Speech, Hong Kong’s Youth Is Pushing Back