The great Ethiopian land-grab: feudalism, leninism, neo-liberalism ... plus ça change

René Lefort 31 December 2011
Land in Ethiopia is being leased to agro-industry investors on very long terms and below market rates. The beneficiaries have good political connections. But land has been the play-thing of centralising authoritarians throughout Ethiopia's recent history

Is inflation a good tax? Can we have an honest political discussion about it?

Julian Sayarer 30 December 2011
UK inflation at 5% is considered almost a victory by the economic managers of the nation. Yet it is a blunt instrument with strong redistributive effects. So what is a well-managed currency, and can we have an honest political discussion about it?

Risk: tricky stuff

David Malone 26 December 2011
If you are a banker what you want is risky, high interest rate loans without the risk... Sooner or later it follows that what the bankers need to do above all else is to elevate financial contracts above democracy.

Chronicle of a non-violent protest: Jobat, Madhya Pradesh (India)

Alessandra Marino 26 December 2011
For more than three weeks over 130 people have carried out the longest occupation of government-owned land ever registered in Madhya Pradesh (a state in central India).

In the shadows of globalisation: drug violence in Mexico and Central America

Benedicte Bull 22 December 2011
The wave of violence afflicting Mexico and the northern triangle of Central America (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador) is caused by three developments: changes in the global drug market, the effect of the war against organised crime and the international financial crisis, making the problem not just a criminal one.

Fumbling for change

Austin Gerassimos Mackell 21 December 2011
If politics is “the art of the possible” then 2011 has left us, as artists, with suddenly a much larger canvas and a new palate of colours to choose from. This broadened scope requires of us a new capacity for imagination.

Time for Tax Transparency in the UK

Oliver Huitson 21 December 2011
In the wake of the PAC report on HMRC's failure to tax corporations fairly, what other solutions might there be to bridge Britain's £25bn "tax gap"?

Water in the Arab Spring

Andrew Wigley 20 December 2011
Water scarcity in the Middle East & North Africa is at the root of the region’s uprisings. In the coming years, it will also be the source of further social unrest across the region.

The UK and Europe: how much damage did Cameron's veto do?

Kirsty Hughes 20 December 2011
Reactions are still rolling in, just over a week after Cameron's veto. Was it the tantrum of an 'obstinate kid'? Whatever reasons he had, he has relegated the UK to the sidelines of Europe.

How do we reform Britain's media? Proposals and your responses

Co-ordinating Committee for Media Reform 19 December 2011
A new committee has drawn up media reform proposals in the light of the Leveson Inquiry. We publish the CCMR's proposals, alongside responses from media experts and practitioners, and invite our readers to join in the debate.

How the crisis may puncture the GDP cult

Eivind Hoff 19 December 2011
Short-term economic growth has been Europe's guiding star since World War Two. It's time for a new horizon, before our lack of imagination leads us into ever deeper crisis.

‘Mr former Havel': the kind of politician we need

Mary Kaldor 18 December 2011
Warm memories pay tribute to Vaclav Havel who died today

Another road for Europe: a draft appeal

Rossana Rossanda et al 18 December 2011
This draft appeal is launched by Rete@sinistra, Sbilanciamoci, il Manifesto and Lavoro e Libertà, who organised and spoke at the Florence Forum, ‘The way out. Europe and Italy, economic crisis and democracy’, bringing eight hundred people together to discuss 'our European alternatives' on December 9, 2011. The appeal, accompanied by its initial signatories, is undergoing discussion between several European civil society networks and groups, aiming at joint actions at the European level.

Is Ukraine heading East?

David Marples 17 December 2011
On the eve of an EU-Ukraine summit on December 19, Ukraine’s relations with Brussels are deteriorating. EU officials have warned that the detention of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko is damaging Kiev’s hopes of signing an Association Agreement by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Ukraine is considering relinquishing a 50%-share of its pipelines to Russia for cheaper gas. David Marples looks at the possible political direction Ukraine is headed for in 2012.

The Long and the Quick of Revolution

Anthony Barnett 16 December 2011

This is the Raymond Williams Annual Lecture for 2011, coinciding with the publication of a new 50th anniversary edition of Raymond Williams’ The Long Revolution by Parthian Books, for which Anthony Barnett has written the foreword, also published here this week. In the lecture, he considers the potentially revolutionary events of the past year, starting with a double-democratic crisis in the ruling order, asking why now? and what kind of revolution is under way?

We live in revolutionary times ... but what does this mean?

Anthony Barnett 16 December 2011

Encouraged by the Spanish movement for ‘Real Democracy Now!’, the Occupy network and above all the Arab Awakening, Anthony Barnett asks what revolution might actually mean in the developed democracies of the West. This is his foreword to the new edition of Raymond Williams' "The Long Revolution"

Science and the corporate university in Britain

Stuart Parkinson 16 December 2011
The instrumentalisation of research and successive governments' preoccupation with 'impact' have gradually eroded the independence of British academia. Business and politics alike are narrowing funding and skewing outcomes.

The search for an alternative to trad Labour: the cul-de-sacs of Marxism Today and Tommy Sheridan

Gerry Hassan 16 December 2011
Two apparently very different books, The Tommy Sheridan Story and Pearmain's The Politics of New Labour, both recount the search for left alternatives in Britain.

This sorry display of self-interest brings shame on the UK parliament

Peter Oborne 15 December 2011
Even after the expenses scandal shook parliament to its core, many British MPs are still putting greed before duty.

Chinese companies under scrutiny in Zimbabwe

Andrew Mambondiyani 14 December 2011
Ten years into the Look East policy, Zimbabwe is showing itself to be a not-so-satisfied customer of Chinese investment.

This week's guest editors

openGlobalRights editors

Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:

Emerging powers and human rights.

A Turkish Spring?

More

Woolwich - terror or conflict?

Secret Courts: 8 nightmare scenarios now possible in Britain
Jo Shaw

Iran myths

Iranian presidential candidate and chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalill

Myths, falsehoods and misrepresentations about Iran
Peter Oborne and David Morrison

Palestinian borders

Palestine, peoples and borders in the new Middle East map
Ahmad Samih Khalidi

Nobel Women's Initiative

More

Europe from the bottom up

European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

More

The media in Europe

More

Mali: the plot thickens

More

Remote control war

More

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

More

Syndicate content