Portside

The year 2012 may have been the United Nation's International Year of Cooperatives, but 2013 may turn out to be the more historic year for worker-ownership if the Cubans have anything to say about it. ...Cuba's new worker cooperatives will operate pretty much along the same lines as their successful cousins in the capitalist world, including Spain's Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, however they will be free from the distorting effects of capitalist competition...

Leo Robinson was a leader of the longshore union in San Francisco. He died this week. For many of us, he was an example of what being an internationalist and a working-class activist was all about.

In Kill Anything that Moves, Nick Turse has for the first time put together a comprehensive picture, written with mastery and dignity, of what American forces actually were doing in Vietnam. The findings disclose an almost unspeakable truth. Turse discovers that episodes of devastation, murder, massacre, rape, and torture once considered isolated atrocities were in fact the norm,...

Bashkar Sunkara earns praise as the founding editor of the online magazine, Jacobin. Started in September 2010, and buoyed by the Occupy movement, the magazine brings left and Marxist reporting in a new way to a new generation.

Leo Robinson was a leader of the longshore union in San Francisco. He died this week. For many of us, he was an example of what being an internationalist and a working-class activist was all about.

The new Portside: better communication, a more usable web site, hyperlinked text, photos, brighter pages, better typography and formatting, integration with Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

PARIS — French labor unions and business leaders struck a deal to overhaul labor laws. The changes include more flexibility for employers to reduce hours to prevent lay offs in times of "economic distress." Employers will pay a higher tax for using temporary labor. In exchange for flexibility, unions secured improvements to unemployment benefits and health insurance, as well as seats on the board of large companies.

A new study in mice suggests that Leprosy employs a bit of biological trickery to do its damage: It reprograms certain nerve cells to become like stem cells and uses them to infiltrate the body's muscle and nervous systems.