When hundreds of people took up the banner of “Occupy the Farm” on April 22nd and laid claim to a patch of urban farmland owned by UC Berkeley, it was not the first time this 5-acre parcel had become the flashpoint of a struggle between the University and local communities.
With the change of President in France, there are likely to be few radical changes in French government policy, neither in foreign policy or domestic programs.
The freer flow of commodities and capital has been one of the features of the contemporary process of globalization. Unlike in the earlier phase of globalization in the 19thcentury, however, the freer flow of commodities and capital has not been accompanied by a freer movement of labor globally.
Source: In These Times
Though high-quality, low-cost education is fast becoming a relic, militant student protests are very much alive. This year marked the first time students in the world-renowned University of California system contributed more to their education than the state, a fact that has been met with demonstrations, boardroom occupations and a detailed proposal for free up-front tuition to be financed through repayments proportional to students’ income after leaving school.
While activists in the United States have struggled to stem the tide of disinvestment in public education, students in Quebec have sustained the longest student strike in the province’s history – and they are beginning to win results.
Israel’s colonization policies are entering an alarming new phase, comparable in historic magnitude to the original plans to colonize Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem following the war of 1967.
Source: Inter Press Service
The voting out of conservative governments in France and Greece this weekend heralds the end of harsh European austerity programs and ushers in an era of new economic, investment, and social policies aimed at restoring growth and employment across the continent.
In Paris, supporters of Francois Hollande cheer the results of the presidential election. Celebrations continued into the night in the Place de la Bastille, the iconic plaza of the French Revolution. Mr. Hollande told them: ‘Austerity can no longer be inevitable.’ (Photo: AP) In France, the Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande, a champion of government-led economic growth and employment strategies, accomplished a comfortable victory over the incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy – the man often seen as the poster child of the austerity programs in practice all over Europe.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019