Leftnews.org is a collection of daily news and views from the political left-wing found around the web.

Leftnews is a project of the Citizens' Press.

• In 2021, the global economy will bounce back with growth of 5.3%, the fastest in nearly 50 years.
• The rebound is, however, highly uneven along regional, sectoral and income lines. Growth deceleration next year could prove sharper than expected if policymakers lose their nerve or heed misguided calls for deregulation and austerity.
• Policymakers in advanced economies have not yet woken up to the size of the shock to developing countries or its persistence. Many countries in the South have been hit much harder than during the global financial crisis, while their now-heavier debt burden reduces their room for fiscal policy.
• The pandemic response in developed countries has activated a resurgent state and suspended fiscal constraints, but international rules and practices lock developing countries into pre-pandemic responses and a semi-permanent state of economic stress.

A highly regarded Venezuelan intellectual reflects on the vicissitudes of the Bolivarian Process’ political model.

These zig zags are wasteful and inefficient. They happen because China’s leadership is not accountable to its working people; there are no organs of worker democracy. There is no democratic planning. Only the 100 million CP members have a say in China’s economic future, and that is really only among the top. The other reason for the zig zags is that China is surrounded by imperialism and its allies both economically and militarily. Capitalism remains the dominant mode of production outside China, if not inside. ‘Common prosperity’ cannot be achieved properly while the forces of capital remain inside and outside China.

To combat extreme inequality, a housing crisis, and crumbling infrastructure, we must tax the rich. A wealth tax could raise hundreds of billions to rebuild the welfare state, but none of Canada’s major parties are proposing tax hikes that go far enough.

Many fear that the volatility of the cryptocurrency will affect their income and purchasing power. They condemned that it is not suitable for small vendors and only benefits the big investors and transnational companies.

A billion people without shoes in the 21st century. Hundreds of millions of them children, many unable to get to school for lack of shoes. Yet the global footwear industry produces 24.3 billion pairs of shoes a year, namely three pairs of shoes for every person on the planet. Many of those who produce shoes in a country like India can neither afford to buy the shoes that they produce nor even the cheapest flipflops available in the market. There are more than enough shoes in the market, but there is not enough money in the hands of hundreds of millions of people to buy these shoes. They work and produce, but they cannot afford to consume enough for a decent life.

How are young people coping with climate change? The answer, according to one study, is not well, and for good reason.

For a forthcoming study, researchers with the U.K.'s University of Bath and other schools spoke to 10,000 people in 10 countries, all of whom were between the ages of 16 and 25, to gauge how they feel about climate change. The prevailing response could be summed up in two words: incredibly worried. And the respondents say governments aren't doing enough to combat climate change.

Trois unités syndicales qui représentent des employés gouvernementaux au Nouveau-Brunswick ont voté en faveur de la grève. Le Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique en a fait l'annonce mardi après-midi, à Moncton

The New Brunswick members of CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, are uniting to protect and improve the services we all depend on. It's time the Provincial government negotiated fairly with public sector workers to fix the crisis resulting from more than a decade of wages going below inflation. Today, we are preparing for an unprecedented province-wide strike with over 22 000 CUPE members in the NB public service. This video tells the story of how we got here, and the path forward.

In 2021, many CUPE locals in New Brunswick put forth in their first pass of Centralized bargaining on a new wage mandate a general economic increase demand of 5% per year, for 4 years. Does this sound like a lot? Let's look at the numbers, with CUPE's Gab Ross and Aditya Rao.

In 2021/2022, the average tuition fees for international undergraduate students in Canada rose 4.9% from a year earlier to $33,623. This follows a 7.1% gain in 2020/2021. Increasingly, postsecondary institutions have relied on income from international students as part of their revenue stream.

The media was responsible for helping create an environment where people begged for war, racist laws and attacks on civil liberties.

Ahead of the coming election, Canada’s main political parties are arguing that "foreign investors" are causing a housing crisis. But the problem isn’t foreigners — it’s the commodification of housing.

There is a tendency in the West, including even among progressives, to treat all “nationalism” as a homogeneous and reactionary category. They treat even anti-colonial nationalism as if it is no different from European bourgeois nationalism, notwithstanding the several crucial differences between the two.

This article [by Soros] would have been very useful if it had stuck to its headline warning, which is more or less along the lines that Xi has made very clear that he’s not going to allow investors, above all foreign investors, to exercise more influence in Chinese business and society.

Hurricane Ida jumped from a 105-mph Category 2 hurricane on Saturday to a high-end Category 4 monster by Sunday morning, in a feat enabled by climate change, seasonal timing and a dose of bad luck.

In the fight to address climate change, renewable energy companies are often assumed to be Jedi Knights. Valiantly struggling to save the planet, wind and solar interests are thought to be locked in mortal combat with large fossil fuel corporations that continue to mine, drill, and blast through the earth’s fragile ecosystems, dragging us all into a grim and sweaty dystopia.

Major stock markets are hovering near all-time highs and commodity prices (food and materials) are rocketing. At the other end of the scale, short-term interest rates are near or below zero, and even long-term government and corporate bonds are at record prices (record low yields).

WhatsApp assures users that no one can see their messages — but the company has an extensive monitoring operation and regularly shares personal information with prosecutors.