Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Kurdish struggle "It was the international community of states that abandoned the Kurds. But the word “abandoned” is misleading, for the Kurdish freedom movement in Rojava never counted on international support in the first place. We all knew very well that US support was tactical and that it would conclude as the US pursued its imperialist, profit-driven agenda. We knew that as soon as ISIS, the so-called common enemy, was defeated, the Kurds would be left vulnerable to all manner of hostility." Is the Rojava's Dream at Risk An interview with Dilar Dirik

Financialisation and the UK economy (An audio interview)

"Internet fibre optic cables around the world trace out the routes of former empires. Cables from Africa route back to their former colonial powers. Lots of cabling from South America still goes back to Spain. Imperialism didn’t stop with decolonisation: it just moved up to infrastructure level. James Bridle is the author of New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future - a brilliant new work that reveals the dark clouds that loom over our technological future: an age of complex uncertainty, predictive algorithms, surveillance, and the hollowing out of empathy."

"A spectre is haunting the British media: the spectre of negative takes on capitalism. Ever since the academic and writer  Ash Sarkar uttered the words  “I’m a communist, you idiot” on national television, the right has recoiled in horror. The alacrity with which commentators jumped on Sarkar’s off-the-cuff comment to relitigate the cold war is deeply revealing." Condemn communists' cruelty, but capitalism has its own terrible record

"The Jews have proved to be first class colonisers, to have the real good, old empire qualities, to be really first class pioneers."  — Herbert Morrison (1888-1965), a British Labour Party leader*. Labour support for Zionism was to continue into the Second World War. In 1944 the party was actually to propsoe the removal of the Arab population from Palestine "on human grounds ...  Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out, as the Jews move in." Quoted in The Blood Never Dried by John Newsinger, 2006, p. 135 *Morrison also   took an aggressive stance against  Iran 's nationalist Prime Minister  Mohammed Mosaddeq  and approved his overthrow.

UK Millions of families are worse off than 15 years ago

Portugal "Voters ushered Mr. Costa, a center-left leader,  into power  in late 2015 after he promised to reverse cuts to their income, which the previous government had approved to reduce Portugal’s high deficit under the terms of an international bailout of 78 billion euros, or $90 billion. Mr. Costa formed an unusual alliance with Communist and radical-left parties, which had been shut out of power since the end of Portugal’s dictatorship in 1974. They united with the goal of beating back austerity, while balancing the books to meet eurozone rules. The government raised public sector salaries, the minimum wage and pensions and even restored the amount of vacation days to prebailout levels over objections from creditors like Germany and the International Monetary Fund. Incentives to stimulate business included development subsidies, tax credits and funding for small and midsize companies." Portugal dared to cast aside austerity  ...