Europe

Constantin Eckner, University of St Andrews for The Conversation It was a moment that has defined Angel Merkel’s chancellorship of Germany ever since. In early September 2015, she allowed thousands of refugees fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq to enter…

by Ellen Brown, originally posted on Truthdig, Sept. 13, 2018   Excluding institutions such as Blackrock and Vanguard, which are composed of multiple investors, the largest single players in global equity markets are now thought to be central banks themselves. An…

By triggering the Article 7 procedure, the European Parliament has made it clear that illiberal democracy is against the core values of the European Union. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee welcomes that the EP has validated, with a two-third majority, the…

By ADAM RAMSAY 10 September 2018 for openDemocracy Deserted by members, right-wing parties serve the rich, while people have flocked to centre and left alternatives, only to be smeared as “dogs” and “Trots”. The SNP has more members than the Conservatives.…

How should we react to the closure of Italian and Maltese ports, to the criminalisation of solidarity and to the misrepresentation of facts? We speak to Riccardo Gatti, the Captain of the Astral and Head of Mission of the Open…

Migration policies, nationalist and xenophobic forces, networking between progressive political forces and civil society, opposition to hatred and intolerance and the value of non-violence. We discussed this with Elly Schlein, MEP for Possibile’ and rapporteur for her S&d Group (Progressive…

By TOM KELSEY 4 September 2018 for openDemocracy Hinkley Point C is the latest in a long string of misguided nuclear policies. Hinkley Point C makes no sense, least of all for electricity consumers. The foreign companies building the nuclear…

By Ken Livingstone This month marks 10 years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers created the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but governments have failed to make changes necessary to prevent a similar collapse. Back…

By  MARTIN SHAW 30 August 2018 for openDemocracy Look at the Vote Leave Facebook adverts alongside their more public propaganda, and you see quite how much it promoted racist ideas. Boris Johnson’s weaponisation of the burqa came on the heels…

by Thierry Meyssan The Western powers are moving inexorably towards Internet censorship, thereby facilitating the dissemination of propaganda and war indoctrination in their countries. In this context, an extremely violent tension is tearing apart the international scene. Aware of the increasing…