The Argentine media group Clarin obtained an eleventh-hour ruling yesterday delaying the application of a section of the country’s new media law which would have forced it to give up some of its broadcasting licences. The Civil and Commercial Court extended the deadline for the application of article 161 of the Audiovisual Communication Services (SCA) bill, known in Spanish as the Ley de Medios.   The decis ...

With presentations about the most pressing problems in the areas of Economy and (lack of) Real Democracy the New Putney Debates pick up the thread of revolutionary thinking that commenced in 1647, 365 years ago. The two weeks of sessions will culminate in a new “Agreement of the People” or Charter of concrete proposals for the necessary changes to build a just, truly democratic and inclusive society. At all ...

First stated by Daniel Defoe, in The Political History of the Devil, 1726: "Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed." Benjamin Franklin in 1789, gave it its current form: "'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Is death certain? Only the physical transformation of the body is, from living and breathing to inert and rejoining the recyclable molecu ...

In the last of our exclusive "Expanding the Debate" series, we bring you highlights of our coverage of last night’s final presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney, with the added voices of third-party candidates. As Obama and Romney faced off for the last time before the general election, we once again broke the sound barrier by inserting Jill Stein of the Green Party and Rocky Anderson o ...

By now everyone knows that President Chavez won the presidential election in Venezuela. In one sense, we can say that “the people” (el pueblo) have won on Oct 7. However, these words do not reflect the entire experience. The most interesting thing about this election is its rather impressive process. Which country in the world has 97% of its population (over 19 million people) registered to vote? And when d ...

Changing times, same needs: The Putney Debates and London Occupy AssembliesIn 1647 England witnessed a remarkable moment, a revolutionary moment in which people demanded universal human rights, the Army attemped to become democratic electing its officers and a spiritual challenge to established power combined with demands for access to land for ordinary people. We reproduce here the background for The New P ...

As Ecuador offers asylum to Julian Assange at its London Embassy with the Foreign Office doing Olympic-size legal somersaults to try to justify storming it, we hear that both the UK and the US have been helping the Syrian rebels, secretly, without any consultation with their parliaments, just to prove the point that we need Wikileaks to know what our governments are up to. According to Reuters “Barack Obama ...