Portside

Cuban authorities began discussing three years ago how to transform bankrupt small and medium-sized state businesses - plagued by pilfering, embezzlement and general inefficiency - into cooperatives. The Communist Party adopted a sweeping five-year plan to "update" the economy in 2011, which included moving more than 20 percent of the state labor force of 5 million people into a new "non-state" sector of private and cooperative businesses.

Interview with Joao Pedro Stedile, of the coordination of the MST (Landless Workers Movement) for the periodical BRASIL DE FATO - Sao Paulo, 24th June 2013. Since the interview, President Dilma Rousseff has called for political reforms, and met members of the main organisation in the mobilisations.

As the world's thoughts turn towards Nelson Mandela, it is becoming clear that his wife too will take her place in history as a huge figure in the fight against poverty, illiteracy and injustice

In this 50th anniversary year of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, we must recommit to the “unfinished march.” This includes constant vigilance to sustain the march’s clear, but still vulnerable, victories. But just as important as sustaining the civil rights goals achieved, we must confront the goals still unmet.

In evolutionary theory, we have this thing we tend to look for, called parsimony. What fits the data best? Fertility into old age is part of our ancestral history if menopause is to eventually evolve, yes? Then probably our closest living relatives, like say chimpanzees, don’t have menopause, unless it independently evolved more than once of course. Right.

A tribute to a movement whose message of inclusiveness and diversity was mirrored in its strategic approach, and which will grow until marriage equality is the rule in all states.

Since an African American came to the presidency, conservatives have decided to give this whole voting thing a critical eye.

Your data is their data, and your communications are in their hands, and they seem to be rising to become an arm of or a part-owner of the government or a law unto themselves, and no one has yet figured out what we can do about it.