The French are revolting. The Greeks, too. And it’s about time. Both countries held elections Sunday that were in effect referendums on the current European economic strategy, and in both countries voters turned two thumbs down. It’s far from clear how soon the votes will lead to changes in actual policy, but time is clearly running out for the strategy of recovery through austerity — and that’s a good thin ...

Anti-capitalist protests in Union Square brutally attacked by police. Economic hardship among the workers. Ostentatious expenditure by the wealthy.  This scenario sounds like the news headlines of the past couple of years, yet the period referred to is the year 1914 and the story is the one told in More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives and New York’s Year of Anarchy.  This book is ...

The elections of May 6th take place in a moment that people are facing the absolute misery. After two years of implementation of the destructive policies of the 'memorandums' (cc. the commitments of the Greek government towards the EU, the ECB and the IMF), the Greek elite, the EU, the IMF and the bankers hold the gun to people's head trying to gain moral and political justification for their policies. Duri ...

Donatella della Porta, professor of sociology at the European University Institute, is a signatory to the ‘Another Road for Europe’ appeal, which has a strong emphasis on the need to democratise the EU, not only by strengthening the European Parliament but through greater participation of civil society. ‘Italy needs reforms, not elections,’ declared Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, as h ...

In the port of Piraeus, dozens of young men with shaven heads and black t-shirts packed a small room one evening to hear Golden Dawn's dream of a Greece purged of foreigners, its borders sealed with landmines. "We want all illegal immigrants out, we want to take their stench out of this place," said Frangiscos Porihis, an election candidate for the ultra-nationalist and highly secretive party. "They shouldn ...

This May, the squares will explode in a frenzy of popular resistance against the diktat of finance capital — and Frankfurt will be one of our key battlegrounds. International Solidarity versus Crisis, War & Capitalism  Ready, Steady, Go! Come to Frankfurt. Join the action days from 16th to 19th May 2012:  Fight the dictate of Troika, EU Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary ...

Athens' fondness for weaponry, and willingness of Germany and France to feed it, under fire as Greece struggles with debt crisis. A few months before submarines became the talk of Athens, Yiannis Panagopoulos, who heads the Greek trade union confederation (GSEE), found himself sitting opposite Angela Merkel at a private meeting the German chancellor had called of European trade unionists in Berlin. When it ...

Here's the full transcript of our interview with Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who has been President of Iceland since 1996, and announced last month he would be running for a fifth term. Keep reading to hear his thoughts on Iceland's recovery, and how a large financial sector can ruin the world. How has life in Iceland changed since the meltdown? It’s very difficult to give a short description of how life has ch ...

The new French president will have to make a decision about a European treaty that would demand still greater austerity. The choice will affect the future of France, and of Europe. Will the French elect a different president, but leave unresolved all the issues raised in the election of 2007? The French would welcome a change of government: because, apart from President Sarkozy’s egregious shortcomings — hi ...

Less than three years after the last food crisis peaked, prices—along with hunger and malnutrition—are up again. Don’t (only) blame nature. Just a few years after one major global food crisis, a new worldwide spike in agricultural commodity and food prices is generating both predictable and extraordinary fallout. The search for causes once again leads to a conjuncture of flawed policies–in trade, environmen ...