Lefteast
On May 28, the Parliament of Georgia has overcome a presidential veto over the controversial “foreign agents law.” Initiated by the ruling party Georgian Dream (GD) in March 2023, the law soon had to be withdrawn because of backlash. This year, however, the GD achieved their goal. The legislation introduces mandatory registration for any “non-entrepreneurial (non-commercial) […]
We co-wrote this article at the beginning of May. On May 28, the Georgian parliament overrode the presidential veto and finally adopted the Law Against Foreign Influence. Although written at an earlier stage of the protests, everything that happened since then has largely confirmed the conclusions we drew back then. Since early April, Tbilisi, the capital […]
Thanks to Z magazine’s generosity, LeftEast is delighted to republish Kristina Božič‘s interview with Majd Nasrallah on the life of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Majd Nasrallah has worked in Palestinian cultural institutions and is a local community organizer with a degree in international law and human rights. He talks about criminal violence being the last […]
LeftEast is delighted to reprint this interview Vladimir Mitev recently conducted with our comrade and Macedonian political scientist Sonja Stojadinovic for Cross-border Talks, in which they discuss the internal situation and foreign policy dynamics immediately after the swearing the May 8 elections and the swearing in of Macedonia’s new president (Gordana Siljanovska from the […]
In April, British foreign minister and former prime minister David Cameron travelled to all five Central Asian republics – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan – plus Mongolia, with the goal of reinforcing Western influence in the region. While in Britain much of the coverage has focused on Cameron’s decision to burn £42 million in […]
This text is a conversation between Iuliia Gataulina and Mina Shahmoradi, respectively members of Russian and Iranian political activist groups in Tampere, Finland. We see value in this conversation because it does not usually happen: in today’s increasingly polarized world, we have been witnessing how the political opposition usually acts along the same lines as […]
The outsized role that foreign-funded NGOs play in Georgia’s politics, policy-making, and public services has led the country into a chronic crisis of its democracy. There is a massive problem at the heart of Georgia’s peculiar political economy. It goes back a quarter of a century, predating the 2003 Rose Revolution. The late president Edvard […]
In this interview, Tim Joye discusses the importance of shifting from private pharmaceutical production to public ownership, emphasizing the need to regain control over medicines’ development and production, while also boosting the need for local production. Highlighting examples and challenges, it underscores the necessity for public alternatives to address pricing, shortages, and innovation in crucial […]
We share the video of a talk by Enikő Vincze, housing justice activist at Căși sociale ACUM!/Social housing NOW! and professor at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, Romania, given as part of the seminar series organized by the Torino-based Beyond Inhabitation Lab. The talk presented results of the academic research “Class formation and re-urbanization through real […]
Since the beginning of March, there has been an unprecedented campaign of violence against refugees and foreigners in Sofia. Polarising and racist statements by politicians and uncritical, sensationalist media coverage have unleashed a wave of attacks. The Bulgarian capital, which is where most institutions and facilities dealing with migrants are located and where most economic […]