African countries are regularly offered Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) by the world’s major economic powers. The balance of power is so unequal that they seem forever condemned to be the big losers. Recent history has nonetheless shown us that there is some scope for resisting European and US [...]Read the full article
Okba Mohammad:The Syrian armed conflict is 13 years old, with the various sides backed by regional and international powers such as Iran, Russia, the United States and Israel. Since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, the dynamic has changed and its intensity has [...]Read the full article
José González was one of the countless migrants who risk crossing into the United States in search of a better life. But after years spent pursuing an American dream that is inaccessible to most, he returned home to the Sierra de Durango in north-west Mexico where he found the good life working [...]Read the full article
Opposition is rising against the Safe Third Country Agreement between the US and Canada. Activists say the pact undermines refugee rights, fails to deter irregular border crossing, and results in tragic consequences for people on the [...]Read the full article
“The work of a caregiver is no joke. We make all other work possible, and we work not only with our hands but with our hearts, because the people under our care also deserve love, respect and dignity.”Read the full article
Two years ago figures in the reparations movement helped set up a task force to come up with a series of recommendations to compensate Californians who are descendants of enslaved Africans and African Americans and right the wrongs caused by [...]Read the full article
Daniel Kostzer:“The response to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse are both powerful examples of the underlying logic of capitalism, that a bank can be bailed out in a matter of hours but during the Covid-19 pandemic it took most governments several months before deciding to intervene to [...]Read the full article
The guiding principle of the public library is that everyone deserves free and open access to our common cultural heritage. This places the institution at fundamental odds with capitalist consumer ideals. From New Delhi to Los Angeles, we visit seven ‘palaces for the [...]Read the full article
Jesús A. Núñez Villaverde:“The issues of security and wellbeing are not antithetical but are the two basic pillars of peace, both within and beyond the borders of all states.”Read the full article
Daniel Kostzer:It is clear that the popular narrative about worker shortages and layoffs is aimed at building a cultural consensus against workers and the labour movement, and is based on biased, partial, and even contradictory definitions.Read the full article
In September, California governor Gavin Newsom signed ground-breaking new legislation allowing people who have committed a crime to apply to have their records expunged. A first of its kind in the United States, the law comes as a relief to hundreds of thousands of former inmates who struggle [...]Read the full article
Real estate developers are flocking to some of Miami’s poorest neighbourhoods, located farther from the coast and better protected from flooding and coastal erosion. Faced with rising housing prices and cost of living, many longtime residents are being forced to [...]Read the full article
Cathy Feingold:As players from the US and around the world prepare for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, FIFA must improve its track record of turning a blind eye to authoritarians and ‘sportswashing’ human rights violations.Read the full article
Home healthcare is a fast-growing sector in the United States, with a large percentage of women, minority and immigrant workers. However, the appreciation for such essential labour during the Covid-19 pandemic has not translated into acceptable pay and conditions, with many workers unable to [...]Read the full article
A photo essay illustrating how decades of migration to the United States has created a generation of abandoned children for whom gangs have become a surrogate family.Read the full article
“Every time there’s a big change, American workers get the short end of the stick, whether it’s deregulation, outsourcing, or free trade.” What is being done to ensure that the decarbonisation process is different?Read the full article
In Los Angeles, the capital of the US garment industry, seamstresses, senators and garment factory owners are teaming up in support of a bill that would put an end to the exploitative practices that plague the fashion industry.Read the full article
Thanks to the efforts of the YouTubers Union and IG Metall, content creators on the platform now have greater transparency, arbitration power, clearer rules, better communication and greater participation.Read the full article
Jesús A. Núñez Villaverde:“No sufficiently solid legal framework currently exists to prevent the potential problems that lie ahead, include the possibility of direct violent clashes.”Read the full article
Cuba has adopted drastic economic, political and social control measures in an 11th hour attempt to stem the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on a country already severely weakened by the tightening of the US blockade.Read the full article
Amazon employees accuse the world leader in e-commerce of seeking to interfere in a ballot to form a union in the Bessemer warehouse in Alabama.Read the full article
Since 2018, most of the murders of journalists no longer occur in countries where there is armed conflict. Now they happen in nominally peaceful nations. Neither criticism from those in power nor populist speeches assassinate journalists directly. However, they do worsen the environment for the [...]Read the full article
“We’ve always said everyone is just one paycheck away from an eviction. In March people saw that the thing the crazy housing people have been saying is true.”Read the full article
Jesús A. Núñez Villaverde:Morocco is continuing to score points in its overt bid to gain total control of Western Sahara, tipping the balance ever more clearly in its favour. The UN and the ‘Group of Friends’ have long since given up on jeopardising their ties with Rabat for the sake of the [...]Read the full article
Observers of the situation in Latin America fear that permanent militarisation will become the new normal, and that, in the absence of adequate civilian institutions, many governments will use their armed forces to provide basic services and to clamp down on their critics at the same [...]Read the full article
The author of ’Insurgent Mexico’ and ’Ten Days that Shook the World’, Reed provides an invaluable example of committed journalism dedicated to social justice while ensuring truthful reporting, respect for sources and the indispensable need for the journalist to be where the news is [...]Read the full article
On 3 November, Californians will vote on Prop 22 in a referendum on a measure proposed by the rideshare and home delivery giants Uber and Lyft which aims to invalidate a recent law requiring these platforms to reclassify their drivers as [...]Read the full article
The shock of the pandemic has created the idea that working without being paid for one’s time or professional skills could be acceptable, upholding the notion of some forms of ‘free’ work in the name of solidarity, generosity and one’s duty as a [...]Read the full article
Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, tens of thousands of immigrants seeking to join their families in the United States have been denied entry for reasons of health, security or economic protectionism.Read the full article
Luis Linares:The socioeconomic policies in CA-4 countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) are geared towards protecting business interests rather than building welfare states. The lack of opportunities leaves young people with only one way out: migration to the United [...]Read the full article
There is a socially-charged element behind the success of sounds like reggaeton and artists like Bad Bunny. The new stars of the Spanish-language music scene played a leading role in the marches that shook Latin America in 2019 and their influence could be decisive in the upcoming US [...]Read the full article
David Bacon:Migrant farm workers are extremely vulnerable to the coronavirus as social distancing is virtually “impossible under conditions H-2A workers typically experience in the United States”.Read the full article
The coronavirus pandemic, and our concerns about contact with people and things, has reopened the debate about single-use plastic. Even the most well-meaning consumers have gone back to it, following the reinvigorated campaign led by the plastics [...]Read the full article
Jesús A. Núñez Villaverde:Sanctions have long had a bad reputation for both failing to achieve results and for causing much more suffering to the vulnerable civilian populations they ostensibly aim to protect than to the political and economic leaders they [...]Read the full article