Alex Nunns reports from Athens on the human consequences of the austerity measures, and how they are being resisted. ‘Although Athens is not São Paulo, it is not any more a normal European capital,’ warns Yannis Almpanis, one of the organisers of a ‘solidarity mission’ of European social movements visiting Greece in late February. And he’s right. The consequences of the austerity programme can be felt on th ...

In the last decade, financiers have speculated billions of pounds in food, helping to make prices dearer and more volatile. Speculation by large investment banks is driving up food prices for the world's poorest people, tipping millions into hunger and poverty. Investment in food commodities by banks and hedge funds has risen from $65bn to $126bn (£41bn to £79bn) in the past five years, helping to push pric ...

Paolo Gerbaudo reports on the Routes of Europe conference in Florence, arguing that the Italian left must embrace the participatory democracy of the Indignados to achieve political purchase. The city of Florence is one of those privileged observation spots from which one can read the health of the Italian left and its international standing. Back in 2002 it was in this city that the first European Social Fo ...

The economics of the elite has as much to do with blind faith as rational argument, says Susan George, so our resistance has to reflect this fact. The Euromemo Group’s recent report is a particularly important and thorough analysis-cum-set of proposals to repair years of self-inflicted damage in the eurozone. Its voice, however welcome, is far from the only one in what has become a mighty chorus. Many respe ...

Trevor Evans outlines the basis for a progressive pan-European response to the euro crisis. The growth of private international financial institutions since the 1970s has seriously curtailed the ability of national governments to exercise democratic control over economic policy. This was vividly demonstrated early in the 1980s, when capital flight forced the French government to abandon its programme of pro ...

In a sharp political  -and for some even “shocking” -  tone the man who committed suicidejust a couple of meters away from the Greek Parliament in the heart of Athens on Wednesday morning explained the motives for his desperate act. In a hand-written note, retired pharmacist D.X., 77, spoke of loss of dignity due to harsh austerity and wished that some day the youth of the country would take the arms and ha ...

An elderly man shot himself in the head on Wednesday in Athens central Syntagma Square, a focal point of anti-austerity protests, reportedly crying out that he did not want to leave his children in debt. Police said the 77-year-old, whose identity was not revealed, killed himself outside the Syntagma metro station, around a hundred metres (yards) from parliament, which for two years has been the main rallyi ...

A plan to round up and detain irregular migrants and asylum-seekers in Greece, including those suspected of carrying infectious diseases such as HIV, has been called “deeply alarming” by Amnesty International. Those considered vulnerable to such diseases, based on their country of origin, poor living conditions, occupation as sex workers or their drug use, will be targeted. “These deeply alarming measures s ...

News is starting to emerge now about an attack on anti-mining/ water justice activists in the municipality of Megali Panagia on the Chalkidiki peninsula in northern Greece. A media release issued by Initiative 136 notes, “Several hundred men on the payroll of ‘Greek Gold S.A.’, a subsidiary of Canadian company ‘European Goldfields’, attacked a group of local activists that are defending the virgin forests o ...

Austerity measures look set to become far more dramatic on Friday, when prime minister Mariano Rajoy delivers one of harshest budgets ever seen in Europe. With near-empty railway stations, shut factories, mass marches and occasional outbreaks of violence during a general strike on Thursday, Spaniards showed the first signs of rebellion against the reformist, austerity-preaching conservative government they ...