Environment and Technology

The war against online piracy - part one: The full force of the law

Details: Thursday, 02 May 2013; Written by Niklas Albin Svensson

The cat-and-mouse game between piracy supporters on the one hand and state authorities and major multinational companies on the other is heating up. Over the past few years there has been a marked increase in the persecution of websites and individuals involved in piracy. Democratic rights are being thrown overboard and the full force of the state applied in the media industry’s ruthless pursuit of profits.

"Bad Pharma" - A Review

Details: Friday, 14 December 2012; Written by Rob Constable

Pharmaceutical companies bend or withhold scientific data and lie about their drugs, in ways which endanger, harm or kill sick people, to make a profit. That is the shocking reality laid bare in Ben Goldacre’s new book, ‘Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients’. This is a prime example of the way the profit motive rewarded by Capitalism stands in front of human progress.

The Great Game in the Arctic

Details: Thursday, 13 December 2012; Written by Frederik Ohsten (Denmark)

Climate change, melting icecaps and new opportunities for access to valuable resources have reawakened a struggle for power in the Arctic. The Great powers are jockeying for control of the region. The imperialist plundering of the resources, accompanied by a huge waste of money on military spending, will not bring prosperity to the peoples of the Arctic.

The battle between Apple vs Samsung: The real significance

Details: Friday, 07 September 2012; Written by Ben Gliniecki

On the 24^th August 2012 Samsung was ordered by a court in San Jose, California to pay Apple just over $1 billion in damages for patent infringement. Apple is now seeking to ban the sale of certain Samsung products in the USA and a hearing is scheduled for 20^th September for that claim. This long-running dispute between these technology giants over infringement of smart phone patents shines a spotlight on the failings of a decaying capitalist system.

Global Warming: a Marxist perspective

Details: Monday, 14 May 2012; Written by Chris Burrows

Just five years ago, not a day would go by without global warming making the headlines. The American politician Al Gore’s documentary film about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, was seen by hundreds of thousands in cinemas across the world. The Conservative Party rebranded themselves as the champions of the environment, nailing their ecological colours to the mast and urging people to ‘vote Blue to go Green’. Even the arch-reactionary American president George W. Bush was forced to concede that, maybe, the environment was worth thinking about.

The red mud catastrophe of Hungary: natural or man-made disaster?

Details: Thursday, 14 October 2010; Written by Marxist.com

The "red mud" surge in Hungary several days ago, which destroyed houses, ruined land, cost a number of lives and has poluted the Danube - with a second surge being threatened - has shocked people not only in Hungary but throughout Europe and beyond. How did it happen - and who is to blame? The bosses media outlets are being in the main somewhat vague on this - our reporter in Hungary goes behind the scenes.

Deepwater Horizon - a unionised workforce would stop these environmental disasters

Details: Wednesday, 21 July 2010; Written by Our Oil Industry reporter

Much is said in the news about the disastrous situation that now exists in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. An ecological disaster of gigantic proportions has been created by the profit motive, which is what drives the BP executives. However, were the company to be thoroughly unionised, with workers’ representatives controlling every level of safety, this disaster could have been averted.