Portside

Last week, Vladimir Putin issued a warning. “If the United States deploys new intermediate-range missiles in Europe after withdrawing from a nuclear treaty prohibiting these weapons, European nations will be at risk of ‘a possible counterstrike.’”

Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, the world’s foremost experts warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens the survival of civilisation.

Ntozake Shange, a spoken-word artist who morphed into a playwright, died on Saturday. Ms. Shange was a champion of black women and girls, and in her trailblazing, she expanded the sense of what was possible for other black female artists.

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Focusing on Ford Motor Co.’s rise, the author posits a connect between racial practices in the United States, Brazil, and South Africa and Ford’s divisive labor processes, seeing racism as an essential element in the creation of global capitalism.

Bernie Sanders wins a battleground state by a 57-43 margin. The win in Wisconsin is huge, with Sanders winning seven of the last eight contests. The hope of Sanders and his supporters is that their momentum math will ultimately influence the delegate math, by cutting Clinton's pledged-delegate lead and convincing superdelegates to swing his way - as happened in 2008, when a number of superdelegates who were initially leaning toward Clinton ended up with Obama.

The speakers and the workshops at the Labor Notes conference celebrated labor's new potential both in fighting the boss and becoming more active in pro-worker electoral struggles. The 2,000 or more participants overfilled the Hilton Hotel and spread out into two other nearby venues. The young workers definitely outnumbered those with more seniority at these kind of events, and the diversity of participants was great. Special reports by Judy Atkins and Dan La Botz.

A strategic look at the U.S. political landscape shows how Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would be able to pull together a majority electoral coalition. It also reveals why either might still be thwarted in pulling together an effective governing coalition in 2017, (assuming they are able to defeat Trump or Cruz). The far right has grown in strength and virulence, while the `regular' conservative right has grown in intransigence.

Among the accomplishments of the Cuban revolution have been the great strides made in the education of its entire people. Education is completely free from primary school through university. Cuba today has a literacy rate of over 96 percent, putting it at the top of all Latin America. But the struggling economy has not created the kind of economic opportunity that is commensurate with an educated population, particularly in the professions.

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