Editor's pick

Party disciplinarians: the threat to dissidence and democracy in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela
Edgardo Lander
The establishment of a disciplinary tribunal in Chavez's new socialist party before it even has statutes and structures is a worrying sign for those committed to radical democracy in Venezuela.
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The post-Washington dissensus
Walden Bello
Even ex-IMF and World Bank economists like Sachs and Stiglitz agree that the Washington Consensus is dead. Aren't their solutions of "enlightened globalisation" blind to the irreversible destructive logic of capitalism, however? Walden Bello examines the varied theories emerging in the aftermath of the collapse of free-market fundamentalism.
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Carbon Trading: the limits of free-market logic
Kevin Smith
Putting a price on carbon and making the polluter pay makes sense, doesn't it? Kevin Smith shows how carbon trading has merely created big profits for transnational companies and had no impact on climate change.
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Nuclear culprits
John Gittings
USA and North Korea are strangely on the same side as nations gather for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) organisation this week. John Gittings explains the connection.
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Reclaiming our past
Paul Mason interviewed by Hilary Wainwright
"The new working class of the global South does not think and behave only like cotton spinners before Peterloo, but also like teenagers on Facebook." BBC Newsnight correspondent Paul Mason talks to Hilary Wainwright about the nature of the global working class.
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The 'sustainable' agrofuels myth

Paving the way for Agrofuels
EU policy, sustainability criteria, and climate calculations
Tamra Gilbertson, Nina Holland, Stella Semino and Kevin Smith
As criticism of agrofuels grows, the European Commission, various EU governments and international bodies are now developing 'sustainability' criteria and standards for their use, but it is unlikely that any set of criteria can mitigate against the impacts of large-scale use of agrofuels. This report summarises EU policy making on agrofuels to date and provides a full survey of current international efforts to develop 'sustainability' standards.
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'Sustainability criteria' called into question ahead of EU Parliament agrofuel vote
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Agro-fooling ourselves
Oscar Reyes
EU and US targets and subsidies are fuelling a growing demand for 'agrofuels'. Far from being a sustainable energy source, the increased cultivation of crops for fuel threatens the world's poor with starvation, damages biodiversity and even contributes to global warming.
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Agrofuels - Another Scramble for Africa?
Trusha Reddy
Just as we begin to come to terms with the colonially-sponsored corporate conquest of our oil resources, along comes a new wave of 'green' companies converting fertile African lands into Northern 'gold'.
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Drug control in Afghanistan

Missing Targets
Counterproductive drug control efforts in Afghanistan
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 24
Despite efforts by the Afghan government and the international community to reduce poppy cultivation, opium production in Afghanistan has once again reached record levels in 2007. Pursuing illusions of quick solutions will do more harm than good.
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Global outlook

Withdrawal the solution to the mess
Interview with Tariq Ali
If the US attacks Iran they will be fighting the Iranians on three fronts - Iraq, Afghanistan and in Iran itself, and they don't have troops to do that.
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A river runs through it
Saul Landau
Their land was stolen, but they got reservations and a license to run casinos. Landau reports on life in the Indian reservation Inchelium.
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Like a crime story
Boris Kagarlitsky
Political games in Russia are quite similar to television shows - the script has already been written for the presidential elections in March.
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Who are the Climate Leaders?
Larry Lohmann
As the EU, the US and big business vie with each other to be recognised as taking serious action on climate change, Larry Lohmann wonders whether the real leadership is not to be found elsewhere.
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Nuke deal may trigger mid-term polls
Praful Bidwai
As India tries to complete its controversial nuclear cooperation deal with the United States, the very survival of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is at stake.
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Responding to Musharraf's self-goal
Praful Bidwai
The deportation of Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia will only further inflame popular sentiment against Musharraf.
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The question of faith
Praful Bidwai
The UPA's capitulation to the Sangh Parivar on Ram Sethu violates its obligation to defend secularism and hands a victory to a politics based on the tyranny of the majority.
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Superstition may yet save marine reserve
Praful Bidwai
India's plans to dredge a navigable canal between its shores and Sri Lanka in the face of strong economic and ecological objections have now run, of all things, into a religious obstacle.
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September, the cruelest month in Chile
Saul Landau
Landau recalls the 1973 CIA-sponsored coup in Chile that brought to power a military junta, and turned the country into the first laboratory of neoliberalism.
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