Britain and the US are finalising plans to launch limited punitive militarystrikes at the end of the week against the regime of Bashar al-Assad over the "abhorrent" use of chemical weapons near the Syrian capital, Damascus, last week. ...

From housing to wages, David Harvey says examining capitalism's contradictions can point the way towards an alternative world. Five years ago next month Lehman Brothers filed for the largest bankruptcy in US history. Its collapse was to signal the beginning of the Great Recession – the most substantial world historic crisis of capitalism since the second world war. How should we understand the fundamentals ...

The Netherlands is host to companies that are involved in human rights violations all over the world. This follows from new research by SOMO (The Research Centre on Multinational Corporations) on the relationship between Dutch tax and investment policy attracting international businesses to the Netherlands, and human rights. Whilst the Dutch government, in its recently published policy statement on corporat ...

The Vice President of the European Commission, Olli Rehn, in charge of Economic and Monetary Affairs is becoming the most unpopular Commissioner in Spain. He emphasizes over and over again that labor market rigidities are causing the high unemployment in Spain. Labor rigidities is a polite way of accusing the Spanish trade unions for the high rate of unemployment that exists in Spain. Indeed, labor rigiditi ...

(Reuters) - A German town has halted a scheme offering asylum seekers 1.05 euros an hour to carry luggage at a station after rail operator Deutsche Bahn refused permission due to a public outcry and criticism that the project harked back to colonial times. ...

Thousands rally at interior ministry in Tunis, hours after opposition figure was assassinated in front of his house. Riot police fired tear gas at protesters in the Tunisian capital Tunis as thousands massed following the assassination of opposition politician Mohamed Brahmi. ...

Edward Snowden has exposed more than a massive spying operation.  The whistleblower has – perhaps unintentionally – drawn attention to just how obsequious Europe’s political leaders are towards the US. ...

Detroit hit the Trifecta yesterday—the third in a series of body blows that politicians have landed on the city’s working people. The Michigan legislature passed “right-to-work” in December and gave the governor the right to impose “emergency managers” on cities two days later. When Detroit’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr announced Chapter 9 bankruptcy Thursday, he was following a predicted trajectory that wi ...

Are the economic policies needed to maintain the euro still compatible with democracy? Greece’s state broadcaster was established after the fall of the military dictatorship. Last month the Greek government (which is implementing EU injunctions) decided to shut it down without authorisation from parliament (see Where Syriza stands). ...

For the first time in 20 years, massive countrywide demonstrations have rocked Brazil. A year ahead of elections, President Dilma Rousseff knows she needs to listen carefully: the young, the poor and the new middle classes all want a country that works and that is cleaned of corruption. ...