BT Cotton: Cultivating Farmer Distress in India By Colin Todhunter

7 February 2020 — Colin Todhunter

Bt cotton

This month, India’s Supreme Court will hold a lengthy hearing on the commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) mustard, which would be the country’s first GM food crop. The court has asked the chair of the Technical Expert Committee to be present and says that the decision on GM mustard cannot be kept pending. The TEC has come out against using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Indian agriculture.

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So-called “rebels” (terrorists) tortured & point-blank executed Syrian civilians, all over Syria

17 February 2020 — In Gaza

Not for the first time I write about this sordid reality.

From the very beginning of the war on Syria, from early 2011, terrorists (then dubbed “unarmed protesters”) have slaughtered Syrian civilians, military and government employees (including famously throwing the bodies of slain postal workers from a post office rooftop).

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Marxism and the Climate Crisis: African Eco-Socialist Alternatives

16 February, 2020 — MROnline

Originally published: ROAPE (Review of African Political Economy) by Vishwas Satgar (February 14, 2020)   |

Introducing an important book series on Democratic Marxism in Africa, Vishwas Satgar explains that the project is premised on a rejection of the authoritarianism of vanguardist politics and the need to learn critical lessons from all the left projects of the 20th century. There is a rich inheritance of emancipatory Marxism in Africa, which includes Frantz Fanon, Ruth First, Samir Amin, Sam Moyo, Harold Wolpe and many others. Today, Satgar argues, the challenge is to defeat carbon capitalism accelerating the climate crisis and fomenting exclusionary nationalisms and for this there has to be a return to Marx.

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