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Global Left Midweek – March 27, 2024

Politics above — politics below

UK/Palestine solidarity. Credit, David McAllister
  1. India: Strategy to Defeat the Far Right in Power
  2. Surprise Win in Senegal
  3. Unfinished Feminist Revolutions
  4. Honduras Stands Up to World Bank
  5. Workers of the World Ignite
  6. North Sea Fossil Free
  7. Vietnam Leadership Changes
  8. A Manifesto from Russia
  9. Morena and Mexico’s Future
  10. Sri Lanka Since the Protests

 

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India: Strategy to Defeat the Far Right in Power

Asim Ali / Frontline (Mumbai)

The bulk of the opposition has framed the election as “democracy’s last stand”. The message, however, has faltered at two levels. Among the demos (masses) of India, such messaging registers only a tepid response. The second obstacle has been the behaviour of the political elites of the opposition itself: wide gaps in terms of unity—of leadership, purpose, or programme. 

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Video: Surprise Win in Senegal

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Arwa Barkallah and Christopher Ogunmodede / Deutsche Welle (Berlin)

Senegal’s little-known, 44-year-old opposition leader Bassirou Diomaye Faye was named the country’s next president on Monday, less than two weeks after being released from prison to run in the election. Faye’s victory reflected frustration among youth with high unemployment and concerns about governance in the West African nation.

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Unfinished Feminist Revolutions

Nos Révolutions / transform! Europe (Vienna)

As feminism has made its presence felt in every sphere of existence, extending its intervention to issues that were not previously seen as feminist (pensions, the content of school curricula, the organisation of power, violence, etc.), it has helped to extend politics to all areas of life. It hence pursued the same objective as the radical left.

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Honduras Stands Up to World Bank

Ryan Grim / The Intercept (Washington DC)

The spectacular battle playing out in Honduras and inside global financial institutions blends the 19th-century American legacy of gunboat diplomacy and banana republicanism with a contemporary twist: The lead group of investors battling Honduras by exploiting international financial institutions is made up of a band of crypto-libertarians.

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Workers of the World Ignite

  • Finland   Matko Rak / WorldCargo News (Reigate UK)
     
  • Tunisia   / Africanews (Lyon)
     
  • Zambia   / Blueprint (Abuja, Nigeria)
     
  • Greece   / The Canary (London)
     
  • North Macedonia   Louis Seiller / Equal Times (Brussels)
     
  • UK/Palestine   / Middle East Monitor (London)
     
  • Philippines   Zeus Legaspi / Philippine Daily Inquirer (Manila)

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North Sea Fossil Free

The Canary

In an unprecedented act of coordinated international climate protest, Extinction Rebellion activists from the UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands protested in solidarity with each other against new North Sea fossil fuels extraction. Under the campaign North Sea Fossil Free acts of civil disobedience happened all around the North Sea.

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Vietnam Leadership Changes

Sebastian Strangio / The Diplomat (Arlington VA)

Vietnam’s National Assembly has accepted the resignation of President Vo Van Thuong, who has become the second president to step down in as many years amid a wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign. Thuong’s dismissal is almost certainly linked with Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong’s “blazing furnace” anti-corruption campaign.

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A Manifesto from Russia

Справедливый мир / Links (Sydney)

Our initiative unites people of democratic, socialist, and communist views--politicians, bloggers, activists. We have worked out a minimum program capable of uniting tens of millions of people who currently have no voice. We want to transform our country from an armoured train hurtling under the rocks into a place for peaceful and harmonious development. 

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Morena and Mexico’s Future

Kurt Hackbarth / Jacobin (Brooklyn)

Presidential standard-bearer Claudia Sheinbaum offered glimpses into Morena's programatic proposals, including a greater emphasis on women’s issues, building on programs instituted during her term as mayor of Mexico City. The most eye-catching proposal would lower the age at which women could qualify for the universal adult pension, with a partial payment kicking in at the age of sixty.

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Sri Lanka Since the Protests

Manimekalai / Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Berlin)

The past five years have been an extremely difficult time for Sri Lanka: from the undemocratic takeover of the repressive regime of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to a devastating economic crisis. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because, the people of Sri Lanka continue to rise up in large numbers, in different groups and forms of national and local protest and activism.