Portside

Mothers Day, unemployment, Pope Francis, climate change and more...

Can photographers be participants in the social events they document? Eighty years ago the question would have seemed irrelevant in the political upsurges of the 1930s, in both Mexico and the United States. Many photographers were political activists, and saw their work intimately connected to workers strikes, political revolution or the movements for indigenous rights. Now a book and a recent exhibition should reopen this debate.

Hospital lobbyists have tried for years to convince us all that predatory pricing policies don’t matter. But the grotesque reality tells a different story.

A 40-day strike of more than 500 dockworkers at the Port of Hong Kong ended with a settlement including a 9.8 percent wage increase - a much-needed sign that resistance to global capital is still relevant and possible. Strikers accepted the offer by a 90 percent vote. Interview with the dockworkers union Secretary Wong Yu Loy

‘We have been through some bitter experiences and we need to learn from the past.'

A&F Gets a Brand Readjustment. Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate. Just Cancel the Sequester. Everyone But Cheney and Rumsfeld. Absolutamente Quilapayun.