PRAGOTI

The fact that so many people support the British National Party points to a disturbing inference: the anti-immigrant sentiment and racism in Britain are far more widespread than is generally assumed.

Writes Hasan Suroor.

"The world capitalist system is in the midst of probably its worst economic crisis since 1929. Capitalism is, of course, seldom crisis free, and there have been a series of crises over the past decade and a half. These included, for instance, the extremely grave Asian crisis of 1997-8. This latter crisis resulted in millions of job losses and deepening poverty in many Asian countries, but it was largely confined to a single region, and it proved to be of relatively short duration, thanks in no small part to continued surging growth in China. On a world-scale the global economy suffered a disruption but continued to grow..." Extracts of the Political Report delivered to the 6th Plenary Session of the 12th Congress Central Committee of South African Communist Party

It is hard to think of a figure more reviled in the West than Robert Mugabe. Liberal and conservative commentators alike portray him as a brutal dictator, and blame him for Zimbabwe’s descent into hyperinflation and poverty. The seizure of white-owned farms by his black supporters has been depicted as a form of thuggery, and as a cause of the country’s declining production, as if these lands were doomed by black ownership. Sanctions have been imposed, and opposition groups funded with the explicit aim of unseating him. Writes Mahmood Mamdani

Sixty five communist and workers' parties from fifty four countries congregated in Sao Paulo at the invitation of the Communist Party of Brazil for the 10th International meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. This is the first time that such a meeting was being held in Latin America. Fifteen communist and workers' parties from thirteen Latin American countries, the largest number to attend since Athens 1998, were present. Sitaram Yechury writes from Sao Paolo.

It is already home to the world's glitziest buildings, man-made islands and mega-malls - now Dubai plans to build the tallest tower. But behind the dizzying construction boom is an army of migrant labourers lured into a life of squalor and exploitation. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports.
Courtesy: The Guardian

The UK claims to be fighting corruption, and regularly lectures African countries and the like about the need to clean up their act and stop taking bribes for arms and engineering contracts. But the OECD anti-bribery international working party party and its feisty Swiss chairman, Professor Mark Pieth, have drawn up a report that depicts the behaviour of the UK administration itself as, in effect, corrupt. Writes David Leigh in Guardian.

This article is excerpted from the conclusion to Mahmood Mamdani's book Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror, forthcoming from Pantheon in January. This article appeared in the September 29, 2008 edition of The Nation.

It would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of the agreement on September 8 between Nicolas Sarkozy of France in his capacity as current president of the European Union (EU) and Dmitri Medvedev, President of Russia. It marks the definitive end of Act I of the new world geopolitical order.

Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa may not be long for this world, both in a political sense and in genuine life-or-death sense. What’s the CIA doing infiltrating Ecuador’s military intelligence systems? Good question! Maybe it’s because the CIA still fears the threat of communism. The final nail in Correa’s coffin might be the fact that he is an ally of Venezuela’s Marxist president Hugo Chavez, who himself is a likely target of CIA ouster or assassination.

Thanks to the credit crunch, the days when people softened the blow by borrowing massively on their homes and credit cards are over. Americans are heading for a huge slump in their standard of living.