The social climate in Greece is charged with the electricity that you find in the air before a tropical storm.” That was the description by a leading columnist on Greece’s most popular daily newspaper. He is not alone in this… Continue Reading
Just one month after Angela Merkel’s new conservative-liberal government took office in Germany it faces its first difficulties. Franz Josef Jung of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) resigned from the government amid allegations of a cover-up relating to the Kunduz… Continue Reading
After last year’s huge days of action, demonstrations and the radical conflicts against redundancies in the car industry, has French rebelliousness disappeared over the past few months? Are we witnessing a downturn in struggle as a result of the social… Continue Reading
Ireland is undergoing a form of shock therapy and major political changes are in the offing. The government has embarked on pay cuts and reductions in the public sector as its principal strategy for getting out of a recession that… Continue Reading
Despite the euphoria that gripped the financial markets in the second half of 2009, the world economy continues to be hit by severe shocks. Another hit it in late November. The most surprising thing about the announcement that Dubai World… Continue Reading
In January 2009 a health worker and Unison activist, Karen Reissmann, brought a claim of unfair dismissal to the Employment Tribunal.1 She complained that she had been dismissed for publicly criticising cuts at her trust. After her dismissal 700 of… Continue Reading
A recent paper produced by Goldman Sachs (GS) claims to shed new light on the trajectory of the global economy in the run-up to the current crisis.1 As well as discussing the “global savings glut”,2 the paper presents new research… Continue Reading
A review of Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Allen Lane, 2007), £25 Authors with both talent and a theme of topical importance are still not guaranteed to seize the public imagination: they also require good… Continue Reading
It really needs to be said that the first things to be forgotten are just the first points, the most elementary things… The first point is that there do in fact exist rulers and ruled, leaders and led… In the… Continue Reading
The fallout from the presidential election on 12 June 2009 precipitated the biggest political crisis in Iran since the 1979 Revolution. The official results gave the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 63 percent of votes, compared to 34 percent for his… Continue Reading