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The Left and Venezuela
Latin America and the CaribbeanDuring the last two months Venezuela has been faced with a terrible wave of violence. It has already resulted in more than 60 deaths along with looted schools, burned public buildings, destroyed public transportation and emptied hospitals. The major media, however, simply engage in a running stream of gruesome denunciations of the government.
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Time for the “International Left” to Take a Stand on Venezuela
Latin America and the CaribbeanThe international left does not even need to take a position on whether the proposed constitutional assembly or negotiations with the opposition is the best way to resolve the current crisis. Opposing intervention and disseminating information on what is actually happening in Venezuela, though, are the two things where non-Venezuelans can play a constructive role.
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Brazil in Crisis and the Challenges for the Left
Latin America and the CaribbeanWith the victory of the right wing in Argentina in 2015, Venezuela in crisis, and Brazil at a boiling point, the only way forward for the left in the region will be to engage in a process of deep reinvention. To do this, it will have to draw on its most democratic impulses, combating the authoritarian character of the new right. This will also mean exploring new alliances and political formations.
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What Is to Be Done in Venezuela?
Latin America and the CaribbeanMaduro has responded to extremists in the opposition by assuming everyone in the opposition is an extremist, presiding over an ineffective and incoherent mix of distributivist carrots and repressive sticks, aimed not so much at consolidating his personal power as at digging in a besieged and out-of-touch revolutionary bureaucracy. The country is locked into an impasse, which might only be broken, many fear, by civil war.
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Canada and the pirates of the Caribbean
Canadian PoliticsCanadian imperialism in the Caribbean is no joke. By the early 1900s, Canadian policy supported annexing the British Empire’s Caribbean possessions (the various islands as well as today’s Belize and Guyana). At the end of WWI, Ottawa asked the Imperial War Cabinet if it could take possession of the British West Indies as compensation for Canada’s defence of the Empire. London balked.
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Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno Defeats Banker in Presidential Election
Latin America and the CaribbeanProgressive candidate and renowned disability activist, Lenin Moreno, won the Ecuadorean presidential election Sunday. With 99 percent of the official vote counted, Lenin defeated former banker Guillermo Lasso, candidate for the right-wing CREO-SUMO alliance, with 51.16 percent to 48.84 percent, according to results issued by the country’s National Electoral Council on Monday morning.
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Profits, Coercion, and Resistance in Latin America
Canadian BusinessWhat forms have Canadian capitalist expansion and Canadian state interference in Latin America assumed in recent decades? How have Latin American workers, peasants, and indigenous communities – dispossessed and exploited by Canadian capital – responded in turn? What precisely are the contours of this dialectic of accumulation by dispossession and popular resistance?
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Toxic Tsunami
Canadian BusinessWith governments acting as complicit handmaidens of private mining companies, it is only social movements and public institutional voices from churches and universities that stand for an end to corporate impunity. We need to up our game in defending not only the workers and communities affected by mining, but also the very land and watersheds and ecological systems that extractivism destroys.
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Unity, Struggle, and Victory: The Second Assembly of ALBA Social Movements
Latin America and the CaribbeanIn the 1970s and 1980s, when Latin America became the testing lab for neoliberal policies, this brought a major reconfiguration to the social and political landscape. Organized labour was dealt a double blow, suffering systemic violence but also weakened by structural reforms. Against this background it was popular movements that took to the front lines of struggle.
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Brazilian President Temer Signs Constitutional Amendment Imposing 20 Years of Austerity
Latin America and the CaribbeanRousseff was ousted to shift economic policy towards neoliberalism, and now Temer is rewarding the banks and financial investors for backing the legislative coup, says SOAS Professor Alfredo Saad-Filho. He is Professor of Political Economy at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
