President Lula said it was completely unfair that the poorest people in the world were suffering most for the mistakes of wealthy, Western financiers. 

This was a crisis that was fostered and boosted by irrational behaviour of people that are white, blue-eyed, that before the crisis looked like they knew everything about economics,’ he declared. 

Since the 2006 Oaxaca revolt, State repression in Mexico has contributed to popular feeling that peaceful protest has failed. Today, the country is on the threshold of a cycle of armed anti-capitalist struggle, argues Mihalis Mentinis

The notion of the 'failed state' is recurrently invoked to justify military and security interventions. Reviewing two books which take so-called failed states in Africa and South America as their object of enquiry, Angela Mitropoulos questions the founding premises of 'successful' national sovereignty

The Counterpunch video interview with Peter Linebaugh is at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/ruspoli03142007.html

No other group has had such a catalysing influence on the new political forms and tactics espoused by the anti-globalisation movement, yet there has been too little critical analysis of the Zapatistas' politics and the relationship of western activists to their guerilla icons. Melancholic Troglodytes review Mihalis Mentinis' book Zapatistas: The Chiapas Revolt and What It Means for Radical Politics and discovers some ugly nationalist features behind the mask

Tijuana Organic – a show that profiles contemporary artists and media activists from the Mexican border town made notorious by its maquiladoras, immigration struggles and crime – steers a course between depicting Tijuana's harsh realities and avoiding a sensationalist treatment of its social complexities. Reviewed by Armin Medosch