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Early elections in Serbia: Progressive win is a warning to the working class (part 2)

Note from the LeftEast editors: this is the second part of the text of Vladimir Unkovski-Korica on the early election in Serbia. The first part could be read here. The collapse of opposition and the crisis of representation To understand the rise of the Progressives, it is necessary to also explain the demise of all […]

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Euronational Border Patrol

by Tsvetelina Hristova and Raya Apostolova Note from the LeftEast editors: this article has been published in collaboration with the new Balkan web-portal Bilten.org. Original publication in Serbo-Croatian is to be found here. When in 2012 Greece began the erection of a wall along its border with Turkey, nationalist formations in Bulgaria voiced the same […]

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Political mobilization and the world system: the case of Ukraine and Russia. An interview with Don Kalb.

In an interview for Ukrainian journal “Commons” and Eurozine (original here), conducted before Euromaidan commenced, Don Kalb discusses the future of capitalism in eastern Europe. Given the rise of China and India, and economic stagnation in the West, Kalb emphasizes the importance of political mobilization in both Ukraine and Russia. Volodymyr Ishchenko: How would you […]

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Working the global art market: labour, galleries, and activism in the Gulf. An interview with Haig Aivaizian.

LeftEast’s Konstantin Kilibarda interviews Haig Aivaizian of the Gulf Labour working group about the ’52 Weeks of Gulf Labour’ campaign. The campaign uses artistic interventions to shine a light on the labour practices underpinning recent projects like the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. LE: What motivated you to start the ’52 Weeks of Gulf Labour’ project?  HA: […]

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Early elections in Serbia: Progressive win is a warning to the working class (part 1)

Serbia held early parliamentary elections on 16 March 2014. The results were an apparently spectacular victory for the outgoing ruling coalition, and the Serbian Progressive Party above all, which secured 48.35 percent of votes cast, or 158 out of 250 seats. The Progressives’ erstwhile allies, the Socialist Party of Serbia, won 13.49 percent or 44 […]

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Macedonia: From the banality of elections to a new political situation

Note from the LeftEast editors: this article has been published in collaboration with the new Balkan web-portal Bilten.org. Original publication in Serbo-Croatian is to be found here. With approaching parliamentary and presidential elections in Macedonia this April a ‘new political situation’ is emerging. After almost nine years of total dominance by the current governing coalition […]

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PATA RÂT ROMA SOCIO-TERRITORIAL SEGREGATION AND GHETTOIZATION

RAMPA DE GUNOI (THE LANDFILL) People looking for sources of income and cheep living conditions settled down right near the landfill starting with the end of 1960s and carried on informal labour (waste selection) since then. Today approximately 250 persons are living within this neglected and life threatening territory in 50 improvised barracks. They were […]

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Is Crimea another Kosovo?

James Robertson recounts the history of Kosovo, before and after the breakup of the ex-Yugoslavia, and assesses the accuracy of Russia’s comparisons to Crimea. published in Socialist Worker, March 27, 2014 THE EVENTS in Crimea over the past few weeks, culminating in the territory–a peninsula on the Black Sea off southern Ukraine–being annexed to Russia […]

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Lenin’s Tomb: Against imperialist intervention in Ukraine

I think it’s worth pausing, and reflecting on the fact that the EU has applied sanctions. Well.  Don’t make the EU angry.  You wouldn’t like them when they get angry.    Raaaahhhrr!  EU SMASH! And yet – and yet – Russia continues to ‘defy the international community’.  Such rare valour.  Such nose-thumbery.  Such bare-faced insouciance. I […]

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Welcome to the dystopian Neverland: Albania, a country in which public transportation will become the ultimate luxury

Imagine a country that once was considered the last stronghold of Stalinist socialism. A country that after the velvet revolution quickly became the apt pupil of the IMF, was one of the first to implement neoliberal reforms, and was also considered in the early nineties by none other than the IMF to be the ideal […]