World

Once again, despite its repeated fine words, the European Parliament this afternoon placed the interests of big business before workers' and human rights. It voted overwhelmingly (486 to 147, with 41 abstaining) to consent to the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia and Peru. MEPs have been inundated with emails and reports from NGOs, human rights organisations and activists seeking for them to vote against this report, given the systematic abuses of human rights in Colombia.

On 27 November 2012, the Eurogroup (comprising the Eurozone’s finance ministers) reached a decision on Greece. Its essence is a guarantee that Greece will remain in the Eurozone (and therefore off the Northern European agenda) for another ten to twelve months; at the very least until the German federal political cycle has seen through the election of a new Bundestag. The repercussions of this short-sighted agreement are grave not only for Greece but for the Eurozone, and indeed the European Union, more broadly.

The great success of societies that are as spectacularly unequal as the US is the indoctrination of the populace into believing that in so far as they are excluded from the wealth of such societies it is because of their own inadequacies. By Vincent Browne.

There is an impulse to dismiss political rhetoric as just so much blather, harmless blather.

"Any violence by a large population is not because this people is more violent than any other. It's an alarm, it's a sign, it's a signal; that something is wrong in the treatment of this population." - Occupation 101 (Film embedded as a playlist below)

Street battles broke out and large parts of Europe were paralysed yesterday as millions of workers walked off their jobs in the biggest coordinated EU strike ever. By Jerome Roos.

Above: Plaza del Sol, Madrid (via Izquierda Undia).

Approximately 40 trade union organisations from 23 countries are staging a European day of action and solidarity today (14 November) with the aim of calling on Europe's leaders "to demonstrate their determination to really get to grips with the deterioration in employment and to respond to the growing social anxiety felt by Europe’s citizens". 

John F. Kennedy brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust over the placement of missiles in Cuba which, he acknowledged privately, made no difference to American security. By Vincent Browne.

Today, I want to overlook the great issues of our time: the forthcoming austerity budget; the jailing of one of our foremost business icons; the bank debt that is not ours; the shame of Angela Merkel's commendation that our austerity makes Europe stronger.

Last week’s unprecedented inundation of New York and, simultaneously, an almost-routine immersion of Venice both highlighted capitalism’s indifference to the fragility of urban life, writes Harry Browne.

Rónán Burtenshaw speaks to arch critic of Israel, Dr. Norman Finkelstein, thirty years after he first entered the political arena.

Q. You have spoken about the role your mother, a Holocaust survivor, played in your early political development. Could you elaborate on this, and also speak to some of the other political influences in your early life?