Germany – Oskar Lafontaine: 'We Want to Overthrow Capitalism'
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Left Party Chairman Oskar Lafontaine speaks about his party's chances in the upcoming elections, its alleged drift to the left and why Angela Merkel needs to work through certain aspects of her communist past. >>> | Thursday, May 14, 2009
BBC: France – Olivier Besancenot: French Rebel with a Cause
The young man dressed simply but smartly in a black shirt and jeans clutches a large microphone in one hand, while the other cuts the air, soars, jabs. The impish grin has gone and he radiates passion and an air of seriousness - for all the world like the one member of a boy band who has the talent to go solo and live on beyond his good looks. (I owe my colleague John Lichfield, The Independent's superb Paris correspondent, for sparking the comparison.) Olivier Besancenot is the Robbie Williams of French Communism.
"Don't let them tell us that we are after utopia.
"It is" - and he spreads out the word to make a point about the economic crisis - "a pol-i-ti-cal choice: when there is a natural disaster, an earthquake or a war, the state declares a state of emergency. For us the social consequence of capitalism is a natural disaster". >>> Mark Mardell | Tuesday, May 12, 2009
