By Gareth Porter - February 7th, 2013

[The] Bulgarian Interior Minister['s]...dramatic announcement...on the Bulgarian investigation of the July 2012 terror bombing of an Israeli tourist bus was initially reported by Western news media as suggesting clear evidence of Hezbollah’s responsibility for the killings...But more accurate reports on the minister’s statement and the only details he provided reveal that the alleged link between the bomb suspects and Hezbollah was merely an “assumption” rather than a conclusion based on specific evidence.

By Ha-Joon Chang - Tuesday 29 January 2013

Gone are the days when the upper classes were terrified of the angry mob wanting to smash their skulls and confiscate their properties. Now their biggest enemy is the army of lazy bums, whose lifestyle of indolence and hedonism, financed by crippling taxes on the rich, is sucking the lifeblood out of the economy...In the eurozone, many believe that its fiscal crisis can be ultimately traced back to those lazy Mediterranean types...who had lived off hard-working Germans and Dutch...Unless those people start working hard, it is said, the eurozone's problems cannot be fixed.

By Martin Kreickenbaum - 28 January 2013

A report by Human Rights Watch documents the way in which Italian border police are deporting groups of asylum seekers to Greece without any attempt to examine their grounds for asylum...In the second half of 2012, Human Rights Watch interviewed 29 refugees deported from Italy to Greece. All testified to human rights violations and abuses committed by the Italian and Greek security authorities.

By Markus Salzmann - 31 December 2012

The latest anti-Semitic outburst by a leading member of the far-right Jobbik party was met with little serious opposition from the side of the governing Fidesz party and marks a further turn to the right in Hungarian politics. Faced with rising social protests against austerity, the government is increasingly relying on fascist forces.

By Martin Kreickenbaum - 28 January 2013

A report by Human Rights Watch documents the way in which Italian border police are deporting groups of asylum seekers to Greece without any attempt to examine their grounds for asylum...In the second half of 2012, Human Rights Watch interviewed 29 refugees deported from Italy to Greece. All testified to human rights violations and abuses committed by the Italian and Greek security authorities.

By Noam Chomsky - December 23, 2012

"The idea of imposing austerity during a recession makes no sense whatsoever...Europe’s policies make sense only on one assumption: that the goal is to try and undermine and unravel the welfare state...[T]he President of the European Central Bank, had an interview with the Wall Street Journal where he said that the social contract in Europe is dead. He wasn’t advocating it, he was describing it, but that’s essentially what the policies lead to."

- Noam Chomsky

Below is an article, reprinted in full, reporting on an event in London, England that was organized by the Cage Prisoners organization. One of the featured speakers was Robert H. King of the Angola 3, who was released in 2001 after 29 years in solitary confinement. King's comrades Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace remain behind bars and have now been in solitary for over 40 years.

By Steve James - WSWS

Belfast and a number of towns in Northern Ireland have been gripped by sporadic loyalist protests over the last week. Rioting and political violence followed a decision by Belfast City Council to restrict the number of days on which Britain’s Union flag will fly over Belfast City Hall...At one point, council officials were locked in their rooms as a group of protesters broke into the City Hall. Shortly after, some homes in the Catholic Short Strand area of the city were attacked.

By Jordan Shilton - 11 December 2012

Ireland’s sixth austerity budget in less than five years...will intensify the attacks on working people to pay for the bailout of the financial elite...The measures fall disproportionately heavily on the poorest layers of the population, who have already endured €25 billion of austerity since 2008, equivalent to 17 percent of GDP.

By JEAN BRICMONT - December 04, 2012

The fundamental ambiguity of the anti-anti-war left lies in the question as to who are the “we” who are supposed to intervene and protect...Intervening means intervening militarily and for that, one needs the appropriate military means. It is perfectly obvious that the Western left does not possess those means...So in reality the actual message of the anti-anti-war left is: “Please, oh Americans, make war not love!” Better still...[as] the Americans are leery of sending in ground troops, the message amounts to nothing other than asking the U.S. Air Force to go bomb countries where human rights violations are reported to be taking place.

By Karl Nerenberg - rabble.ca

There can be almost no doubt that the minute Canada bestows the honour of “safe” country on present-day Hungary there will be defiant cries of victory from that country’s violent militias and legions of admirers of 1930s and 1940s style Fascism...It might be an unintended consequence; but it should not come a surprise to Jason Kenney and this government.

By Jérôme E. Roos - November 15, 2012

...Southern Europe continues to tremble on its very foundations. As smoke rises from the streets of Madrid, Lisbon, Rome and Athens, one thing is becoming ever more clear: the question is no longer if but when the social explosion will hit. The outrage is building up, and with unemployment rising, austerity deepening, and a generation of Europeans increasingly disillusioned by state intransigence and outraged by police violence, such an outburst of popular rebellion seems ever more inevitable. All it will take is a spark.

From 12 midnight, the general strike has been strongly felt throughout Spain. In Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Córdoba, Galicia, Asturias, Aragón, etc., in each region and every city, the main companies have gone on strike, and transportation has been paralyzed. The strike began with the force of the workers of the big factories, since the night shift workers are the first to go on strike, completely shutting down production.

By Sahra Wagenknecht - November 12, 2012

A storm is brewing in Southern Europe. In Greece on November 6 and 7 another general strike will take place. On November 14 Portuguese, Cypriot, Spanish and Italian trade unions intend to go on strike in opposition to the austerity policies of the European Union. Belgian and British trade unions, as well as the European and German trade union confederations, are also calling for action. If the mobilization is successful, this transnational strike will be a milestone in the formation of a European protest movement desperately needed to prevent the final demolition of the European welfare states.

By CAOIMHGHIN Ó CROIDHEÁIN - Counterpunch

Business and political elites are determined to make ordinary Irish people pay for the financial crisis with a whole raft of new taxes and charges coming down the line over the coming year. New annual water and property charges of up to €800 a year...may soon create the kind of vocal reaction and demonstrations perceived to be strangely lacking in Ireland up to now.