Rakel Sigurgeirsdóttir, an Icelandic teacher from Reykjavík sent on this explanation for the open letter (below) that is addressed to the foreign experts invited to attend the Iceland´s Recovery-Lessons and Challenges conference, being held on October 27th in Reykjavík. The foreign experts include Paul Krugman, Martin Wolf, Simon Johnson, and Willem Buiter. The full letter [...]

This is a very interesting instalment from an interview that the Scottish branch of Unite the union conducted with Yanis Varoufakis in which he provides a very damning assessment of social democratic parties in Europe.
From the Unite Scotland’s description of interview:
“Unite Scotland’s fourth and final instalment in the Varoufakis series puts focus on [...]

Michael Albert, writer, activist, author of ‘Parecon - Life after Capitalism’ and co-founder of ZNet, will be speaking at various locations in Dublin on 11th and 12th of October 2011 (details below).
Subjects include media, participatory economics, the creation of a new international organisation for a participatory society, and strategy for social change.
The events are part of [...]

The Coalition of Resistance is organising a European conference against Austerity, Cuts and Privatisation, and in defence of the Welfare State on Saturday 1st October in London.
You can register and get details about the European Conference Against Austerity & Privatization here.
From the website:
The economic crisis of 2008 is still gripping Europe. Governments are telling us [...]

Here’s something which Eamonn Crudden passed on to me today to mark the anniversary of the death 10 years ago of Carlo Giuliani, a young anarchist who was shot dead by Italian Police in Genoa during the Anti-Globalisation protests against the G8 meeting in the city.
Below is his 2002 documentary Berlusconi’s Mousetrap, and a 12,000 [...]

Last Sunday Michael Burke had an article in the Guardian’s Comment is Free on the European Banking Association’s stress tests and the current Eurozone debt crisis. Michael argues that the spending cuts imposed on “bailed out” economies are being imposed as a mechanism to save European banks, and the conditions around the paying of those [...]

Yes, we got a pat on the head. Yes, as Stephen Kinsella put it, there was a ‘nothing to see here, keep moving,’ quality to the EU-IMF’s performance report. And, yes, the IMF is forecasting that Ireland, under the current programme, won’t repair its finances by 2015, 2016 or potentially [...]

The main direction of lobbying for the IMF’s new managing director is unfortunately showing the weak side of that organization, not its strong one.
Serious economic commentary already knows the greatest challenges of the next period. It is only necessary to open a business paper to review them. In the next decade, the world economy will [...]

This article originally appeared in New Europe today. Republished with the kind permission of the author.
The press coverage of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest leaves me ambivalent. Like every other journalist who has written about the matter, I am not qualified to speculate on whether he committed the crime for which he has been charged. Rape [...]