Portside

1. Lessons of Bangladesh Uprising
2. Macron Refuses to Recognize United Left
3. Eye on Palestine
4. Coordinated Climate Activists Shut Airports
5. More on Venezuela Election
6. Protests Across Indonesia
7. Defending Water in Montevideo and Mexico City
8. Maasai Fight Evictions
9. Iran: Political Prisoners Face Execution
10. The Legacy of Arno Mayer

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Lessons of Bangladesh Uprising

Jayati Ghosh / International Development Economics Associates (New Delhi)

The popular insurrection that ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League government offers important lessons for the international community and neighboring India. While the unrest was undoubtedly fueled by the regime’s repressive and increasingly anti-democratic tactics, the underlying causes of public discontent are often overlooked.

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Macron Refuses to Recognize United Left

Paul Kirby / BBC (London)

Some of France's left-wing leaders have backed protests against President Emmanuel Macron, after he refused to nominate a government led by the left-wing New Popular Front alliance (NFP). The four-party coalition won the most seats in last month's parliamentary elections and said its candidate, Paris civil servant Lucie Castets, should be named prime minister.

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Eye on Palestine

 •  Armed Resistance in Jenin and Tulkarem   Fatima AbdulKarim / +972 (Tel Aviv) 

 •  Discontent with Hamas   Mahmoud Mushtaha / +972

 •  The Exhausted Left   Francesco Saverio Leopardi / Jacobin (Brooklyn)

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Coordinated Climate Activists Shut Airports

Rosie Frost / Euronews (Lyon)

Flights have been grounded at airports around Europe after protesters glued themselves to runways. High Court injunctions have been issued at several UK airports banning protesters from their sites. It comes as climate activists begin a summer of potential flight disruption around Europe calling for an end to fossil fuels. 

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More on Venezuela Election

 •  The Case Against Maduro   Gabriel Hetland / New Left Review (London) 

 •  ‘Venezuela Has Spoken’  Ed Newman / Radio Havana Cuba

•   Not Losing Sight of Imperialism   Ricardo Vaz / Venezuelanalysis (Caracas)

•   From a Left Human Rights Perspective   Antonio Plessmann and Federico Fuentes / Links (Sydney)

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Protests Across Indonesia

Al Jazeera (Doha)

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in multiple cities across Indonesia to protest against attempted revisions to the country’s election law. Indonesia’s parliament postponed ratifying changes to the election rules on Thursday as protesters attempted to tear down the gates of the legislature in the capital, Jakarta.

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Defending Water in Montevideo and Mexico City

Florencia Pagola, Carolina Bas Lemos, Madeleine Wattenbarger and Eliana Gilet / NACLA Report (New York)

As the climate crisis advances across Latin America, both cities find women on the front lines, defending their communities’ access to water. In Montevideo, during a four-month water emergency, water heaters broke due to high salinity, and people with hypertension, pregnant women, and children were warned to not drink from the tap. 

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Maasai Fight Eviction

Shola Lawal / Al Jazeera

The thousands of Maasai in Ngorongoro and Loliondo in Tanzania are again facing eviction. Over the years, attempts to evict Maasai have become common. Community members are on a campaign to get international donors to defund their government and stop rights violations.

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Iran: Political Prisoners Face Execution

Deepa Parent and Annie Kelly / The Guardian (London)

There are fears for the fates of women’s rights activists imprisoned in Iran after a surge in executions since the election of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. At least 87 people were reportedly executed in July, with another 29 executed on one day in August. The mass executions included Reza Rasaei, a young man sentenced for his participation in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

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The Legacy of Arno Mayer

Mathias Fuelling / Verso (London)

Arno J. Mayer was the last of the great Jewish American intellectuals who were refugees from fascism in Europe. For Mayer, the history of the ruling class is intimately connected to the structure of the state and foreign policy, and to global politics. In Mayer’s analytic, domestic conflicts are the main elements impacting the decisions the ruling class makes in a given country regarding foreign policy.