Portside

Puerto Rico is in crisis. But the crisis is not about how to pay Wall Street. It is about the impact of centuries-long economic devastation on the men, women, and children—especially children—that live in Puerto Rico. While failure to pay the banks and the vultures makes headlines in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, the human misery caused by five centuries of colonialism does not.

The world’s most dangerous malaria parasite shuffles its genes in a clever attempt to avoid the immune system. A new approach has begun to reveal how the process works.

Turkish journalist Onur Erem interviews noted political commentator Tariq Ali on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Syrian policy in the aftermath of the October 10th terrorist attack which killed more than 100 peace demonstrators in Ankara. According to Ali, Erdoğan has been one of the principal supporters of the Islamic State as a new force to bring down Syrian President Assad’s regime. But Turkey and NATO’s strategy in the region is now in ruins.

President Obama’s decision to leave actually ending, as opposed to officially “ending,” the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan to his successor (barring Congress developing the nerve and the decency to act) illustrates our collective and his personal failure to overcome what candidate Obama once called the mindset that gets us into wars.

Whether the current phase of Israel’s intensified repression and Palestinian popular resistance will evolve into a full-fledged intifada or not, one thing is already evident—a new generation of Palestinians is marching on the footsteps of previous generations, rising up en masse against Israel’s brutal, decades-old regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid.

Puerto Rico has been sacked by colonial powers for half a millennium. Is it any wonder it is in dire straits? Today, it is $73 billion in debt. As a point of comparison: Greece recently asked for about $82 billion from the European Union. The German finance minister thought it was funny when he proposed to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that the Eurozone exchange Greece for Puerto Rico.

Blackstone is one of the world's largest private equity firms. Blackstone made big money in the last housing bubble and now is cashing in again to make lots more. It is buying up housing and real estate all over the world and quickly becoming one of the largest landlord's in our cities. They are raking in the profits. But at the expense of our families and communities.

65 percent of UAW members at Chrysler voted no on the first deal, which they felt did not do enough to eliminate the two-tier system or protect jobs. This time around, the UAW International has hired PR firm BerlinRosen to sell the tentative agreement to members via social media. The UAW represents 40,000 workers at Chrysler.

The Yiddish/Jewish element increases the feelings of isolation and societal pressure in Willie and his family in a way that seems both inherent, yet also novel. The job of art is to make familiar things new and new things familiar; this rendition does both, in its own mysterious way.

Europe's left needs a Plan B at its disposal, which will allow any future left government in Europe to face down the blackmail from the European establishment — including threats of expulsion from the eurozone.