Syriza, the radical left-wing coalition comes first in all major cities and among people aged 18-35. Its campaign advocated suspending debt payment and cancelling austerity measures. - IV448 - May 2012 / Greece

Eric Toussaint, Doctor of Political Science and President of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM), is a member of the Commission for an Integral Auditing of Public Debt in Ecuador (CAIC) whose findings resulted in Ecuador stopping its repayment of part of its debt. He claims that Greece must stop paying its debt and must rise up against the Troika (the European Central Bank, the IMF and the European Commission) otherwise it will sink into the doldrums of permanent recession. - IV446 - March 2012 / Greece, Economy, European Union, Debt

The future of the Arab spring and the Indignados and Occupy Wall Street movements is very difficult to foresee. The Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings are likely to lead to a transition similar to those that ensued in Latin America, the Philippines and Korea with the end of dictatorships in the 1980s, or in South Africa in the 1990s and in several sub-Saharan African States: with the stabilization of a neo-liberal bourgeois regime. Today is a different era, the Muslim world presents very specific characteristics, and the geo-strategic stakes are significant (especially as regards Egypt and the Middle East, less so Tunisia): history is an open process. The capacity of the oppressed to organize will be decisive. - IV444 - January 2012 / World, Global Justice

In 2011 we come across several common features when looking at the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street or the Indignados movements in various countries. - IV444 - January 2012 / World, Global Justice

Living conditions in Tunisia and Egypt, neither of which export raw materials, or only marginally, have worsened over recent years. The resulting civil protest has been met with brutal repression. In Tunisia first, this led to a mass reaction, which quickly took on a political dimension. People gathered in the streets and squares to face the forces of repression, which left 300 dead, and demanded the departure of the dictator, Ben Ali. He was forced to step down on 14 January 2011. - IV444 - January 2012 / World, Global Justice

In 2007, the capitalist sky started to darken: the biggest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s had erupted. The different crises that ensued were interconnected: the banking and financial crisis, real estate crisis, and economic crisis in the most industrialized countries, and the food crises in the Southern countries, particularly in Africa and certain Asian countries (Latin America was less significantly affected), which mainly resulted from the economic policies practiced in the most industrialized countries, in particular the shift away from real estate speculation (when the housing bubble broke) towards the grains futures markets; and support for biofuel production. - IV444 - January 2012 / World, Global Justice

In 2011, social and political rebellion has re-emerged in the streets and on squares all over the world. It has appeared in new forms and been given new names: the Arab Spring, the Indignados, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The main regions affected are North Africa and the Middle East (including Israel), Europe and North America. Not all countries in those areas have been equally affected by this new wave of mobilizations and new forms of organization, but everybody has heard about the movement. - IV444 - January 2012 / World, Global Justice

The debt in the North, i.e. in the most industrialized countries, [1] began to reach high levels in the 1980s. And with reason. Following the first oil crisis and the 1973-1975 economic crisis, governments tried giving a Keynesian boost to the economy and resorted to borrowing. Debt servicing then soared when the US Federal Reserve suddenly raised interest rates (October 1979) thus marking a break from the past 46 years of Keynesian policy initiated in 1933 during Franklin Roosevelt's first term. - IV434 - March 2011 / USA, Greece, Economy, Global Justice, European Union, Debt

The G20 is no more legitimate than its progenitor the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and USA). It was launched by the industrialized countries three years ago when they were beginning to feel the effects of the biggest economic crisis since the 1930's. The G20 was thwarted from the start to the finish of its summit in Cannes on 3rd and 4th November 2011. That the EU and Eurozone are in crisis is flagrant, and at the heart of all the concerns. The about-turn exercised by George Papandreou three days before the start of the summit, when he announced a Greek referendum for January 2012, caused uncertainty to hover over the most recent agreements aimed at avoiding a chain reaction of bankruptcies among the major European banks and its collateral effects on their North American counterparts (See Eric Toussaint « Les banques sont le maillon faible en Europe ») - IV442 - November 2011 / Economy, European Union

In the context of global crisis, what is at stake at the G20 meeting under French presidency? - IV442 - November 2011 / France, World, Global Justice