September 18, 2019
It was only in June that then Home Secretary Sajid Javid apologised for the impact that his department’s “hostile environment” policies had on the Windrush generation, many of whom lost their homes and jobs or were even deported from the UK. His promised review of the policy is incomplete, however, and is one of the tasks facing new minister Priti Patel. She supported the tough immigration measures that were brought in originally by Theresa May, but can she now learn the lessons from the Windrush scandal and make the department’s policies less hostile?
Continue reading “The “right to rent” is discriminatory – enough is enough”
Category: Housing, Migration | Tags: private rented sector, right to rent |
August 30, 2019
Photo: Getty
Last week’s report suggesting supply is not the answer to the housing crisis is just the latest in a series to make this claim, but it remains misleading.
Continue reading “The Tony Blair Institute is wrong – we do need to build more homes to solve the housing crisis”
Category: Housing | Tags: housing policy, housing market |
August 26, 2019
In their hunger for US funding, Nicaraguan “human rights” NGO’s inflated the death toll during last year’s coup. Today, these groups are in a state of complete disarray.
Continue reading “Counting deaths for dollars: the rise and fall of Nicaragua’s ‘human rights’ organizations”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Nicaragua crisis |
July 17, 2019
This week is the launch of the Spanish edition of the ebook about last year’s events in Nicaragua. The launch coincides with the 40th anniversary of the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship on 19 July 1979. Here is a review of the book by Roger Stoll. The English version of Live from Nicaragua is offered free by Alliance for Global Justice (afgj.org) as an ebook and a PDF.
Continue reading “Live from Nicaragua”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Nicaragua crisis |
July 16, 2019
A deadly arson attack during last year’s regime change attempt was blamed on Nicaragua’s government by everyone from the US State Department to The New York Times and The Guardian. New information has raised serious doubts about the official story, highlighting the wider campaign of misinformation waged by US and UK media.
Continue reading “A year after Nicaragua’s coup, the media’s regime change deceptions are still unraveling”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Nicaragua crisis |
July 3, 2019
Ten European cities are demanding action from the European Union to help them control the growth of short-term lets in their local housing markets. The fear is that providers like Airbnb could become exempt from local regulations that enable authorities to control lettings in the private rental sector, because they will be under no legal obligation to declare the existence of lettings or how much rent is being charged, even though they have this information.
Continue reading “Could Airbnb devastate the housing markets in key cities?”
Category: Housing | Tags: private rented sector, housing market |
June 13, 2019
Bismarck Martinez’s family demand justice for his murder
In February the Sandinista government resumed a “national dialogue” with the opposition, re-establishing a forum to resolve political conflict in the country after the previous dialogue fell apart during last year’s violence. In the new negotiations, the opposition Civic Alliance’s key demand has been the release of those who were imprisoned for crimes committed during the failed coup. In late March, the government agreed to release all detained prisoners by 18 June, a process completed several days before the deadline, in co-operation with the International Red Cross.
Continue reading “Nicaragua’s amnesty for crimes committed in last year’s violence fails to satisfy an implacable opposition”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, Nicaragua crisis |
May 27, 2019
Despite the violent protests of a year ago, Managua has largely returned to normal. While never the most attractive capital city in Latin America, it remains one of the safest. There are more police on the streets than there were before last year’s violence, but most people find that reassuring. A recent opinion poll shows that the government maintains close to 60% support and that 85% of Nicaraguans would oppose any return to last year’s protests. Nevertheless, if you buy a newspaper, you’ll find it full of anti-government rhetoric. If you watch TV news, there’s a good chance you’ll find the same. According to the world-wide Committee to Protect Journalists, opposition media are in a stronger position than they were before the crisis.
But this is far from the picture painted in the UK by the Channel 4 series ‘Unreported World’.
Continue reading “‘Unreported World’ and the misreporting of Nicaragua”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, Nicaragua crisis |
May 20, 2019
Right to Buy continues to fiercely divide opinion. Here, John Perry argues why he believes calling time on the 40-year-old policy is now the sensible thing to do
Here’s a good question for a pub quiz: what was Britain’s biggest ever privatisation? Was it British Gas, or perhaps water or electricity? All of these raised more than £5bn each but neither was the biggest. Perhaps, surprisingly, the answer can be found in table 60 of the annual UK Housing Review. The correct answer is, of course, the Right to Buy, which has so far raised over £55bn across England, Wales and Scotland and dwarfs all of the other privatisations.
Continue reading “Right to Buy is shocking value for money – a sensible government would ditch it”
Category: Housing | Tags: council housing, right to rent |
May 13, 2019
A reflection on Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States and the rise of the new imperialism, by Greg Grandin, published in 2006 and updated in 2010.
So many books have been written about US intervention in Latin America that, when this one was published a decade ago, it might easily have been overlooked. Grandin’s approach was different however: he concentrates not so much on how the US intervened, but why it does, and how this fits into evolving US foreign and domestic policies more generally. He shows that US intervention has at different times had strong political, economic and even religious motives, with the US often treating Latin America as its ‘workshop’ for new approaches to intervention that it has yet to try elsewhere.
Continue reading “Latin America is still the empire’s workshop”
Category: Latin America, Book reviews | Tags: Honduras, Nicaragua, US intervention, El Salvador, Nicaragua crisis |
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on