Skip to main content

Posts

Afghanistan: Humanitarian Catastrophe

“The UN has forecast that Afghanistan’s gross domestic product will contract 20 per cent within a year following the Taliban’s takeover of the country, representing one of the worst economic meltdowns in history. Such a contraction took five years of civil war in Syria to achieve, and was expected to worsen to 30 per cent next year. The UNDP said aid accounted for as much as 80 per cent of budget expenditure. The UNDP estimates that the loss of female employment could cost up to $1bn, or 5 per cent, of GDP, and slash productivity.” Source: the Financial  Times

Democratic Socialism in Honduras?

Can a poor country establish democratic socialism? Would imperialism, especially American imperialism, tolerate it at its backyard? Is Honduras an alternative to the Latin America’s ‘pink tide’ or is it just a continuation of changing horses between the right and the left? One of the good outcomes in Honduras is a confirmation that the question is not about more ‘women’ occupying high positions in state and government, but about the colour, the ideology and socio-economic programme of the ‘woman’. “I believe firmly that the democratic socialism I propose is the solution to pull Honduras out of the abyss we have been buried in by neoliberalism, a narco-dictator and corruption.”  – Xiomara Castro

They Do ‘Human-Trafficking’, We Drive People Into the Sea

‘What the Belarus regime is doing is basically human trafficking,’ a French government spokesman said on 10 November. A few days later, interior minister Gérald Darmanin ordered French police to dismantle the migrant camps outside Calais and Grande-Synthe; they slashed the tents with knives. And on 24 November, 27 migrants drowned trying to cross the Channel. Is that a crime difficult to solve?